AQUATIC WARBLER. 
59 
at Boswortli and at Thornton. This bird, and especially the Sedge-Warbler, are 
the two species which, singing at all hours of the night, are so often mistaken 
for the Nightingale. 
In Rutland. — A summer migrant, unevenly distributed, and breeding, as, 
for instance, in an osier-bed near Wardley Wood, so ^Ir. Horn informs me. 
AQUATIC WARBLER. Acvocephalus aquaticus (Gmelin). 
This bird is noted as occurring in Leicestershire, on the authority of IMr. 
J. E. Harting, who wi'ote in the ‘ Ibis,’ 1867, y)p. 468-9 : — “ I was unfortunately 
absent from the meeting of the Zoological Society held on the 8th of 3Iay, 1866, 
when the first specimen of Sylvia aquatica, Lath., known to have been obtained 
in England, was exhibited ; but in November last, when on a visit to i\Ir. 
Borrer, I had an opportunity of examining it, and was at once struck with its 
similarity to a bird in my own collection which I had received from the 
neighbourhood of Loughborough, and which I had put aside to be named. 
On my return home I re-examined this example, and then felt little 
doubt that it was a S. aquatica. To be sure, however, that I was not 
mistaken, I sent it for confirmation to Mr. Tristram, and that gentleman 
thereupon wrote to me as follows ; — ‘ There is no doubt about your Salicaria 
aquatica. It is not in full plumage, and therefore may be a bird of the 
year. The mature bird in breeding-plumage has not the spots on the 
breast and flanks. There is no difference between the sexes.’ It only 
remains for me to add that my specimen was obtained near Lough- 
borough, in Leicestershire, during the summer of 1864, and was forwarded 
to me by a friend, under the impression that it was a Grasshopper- 
Warbler. When we consider that S. aquatica is known to breed on 
the opposite shores of Holland, and is found in the marshes about Lille and 
Dieppe, we are only surprised that it is not a more frequent visitor to Great 
Britain than it appears to be. On the other hand, its general resemblance in 
size and colour to other well-known species, when seen at a little distance, 
would naturally cause it to be oveidooked.” 
The same specimen is also mentioned in the ‘Zoologist’ (1867, p. 946)^ 
in ‘Handbook of Bifitish Birds’ (p. 105), in ‘Our Summer Migrants ’ (p. 91), 
and in Yarrell’s ‘History of British Birds’ (Fourth edition, vol. i., p. 381). 
As a guide to its differentiation from the Sedge-Warbler, I give the 
following description of an adult male from Dresser’s ‘ Birds of Europe ’ : — 
“Crown blackish-brown, forehead reddish-buff; on each side of the crown a 
broad buffy-white stripe passes over the eyes and ear-coverts ; and a median 
stripe of the same colour extends from the forehead to the back of the head ; 
upper parts greyish-buff with a slight yellowish tinge, each feather with a 
dark-brown median patch ; rump and upper tail-coverts washed with warm 
