536 
CISTICOLA CUESITANS. 
plentiful in parts of the Transvaal^ Natal, and also in Damaraland, in which region it exists in the form of 
C. ayiesi (Natal) and C. terrestris (Transvaal), which two races. Air. Gurney has pointed out, are identical 
with the C. schcenicola of Europe, and consequently with C. cursitans of Asia. 
Habits. — The Grass- Warbler, as its name implies, frequents both cultivated and wild grass-land of all 
sorts, paddy-fields, marshes, swamps, meadow-land surrounding inland tanks, waste ground covered with rank 
herbage, patnas, and all places where the soil will grow sufficient cover for it to thread its way about in. It 
is essentially terrestrial in its mode of life, and is the most restless little creature imaginable, rising up a 
Imndred times in the day, with its spasmodic jerking flight and singular chick-chick note, and then suddenly 
descending to earth, as it it were simply desirous of exercising its muscular powers or discontented with the 
haunts that fate had allotted to it. Nothing, perhaps, can be more interesting to the lover of animated 
nature than, on a lovely morning, to walk through the rich pastures clothing the alluvial deposits round the 
vast Alinery tank, and while the car is arrested with the sweet song of hundreds of Sky- Larks, to watch the 
vagaries of these little denizens of the grass, as they flit up and down and send forth their singularly sharp 
little notes. Its manner of hovering on the wing when it reaches its greatest altitude, which is geuerally from 
50 to 100 feet, is a mere habit, and not done with any view of selecting a place to alight in, as it invariably 
“ jerks itself down to the ground considerably beyond where it has been poising itself. The large variety, 
which frequents the patnas of the Nuwara-Elliya plateau and the Horton and other elevated plains, has a 
habit of alighting on the tops of bushes and rhododendron-trees, and there I’emaining perched for some time 
which I have not observed in the low-country birds. This species is particularly lively in the evenings, just 
before going to roost, and when it settles on the ground, immediately threads its way through the grass, not 
by running on the ground, but by adroitly springing from stalk to stalk, and darting here and there^vherever 
an opening in the vegetation presents to it an easy way of escape. When it realights, after being flushed, it 
will always be found a good number of paces from where it first disappeared, no matter how quickly one 
follows it up. 
There is perhaps no bird of this family concerning which more has been written than the present ; and 
that which has attracted notice, in the case of all naturalists who have observed it, is its peculiar flight, as also 
its interesting mode of nidification. Of the European race, which, however, appears to frequent sedges and marshy 
places much more than ours. Col. Irby writes In the spring they go to the cornfields as well, never, however, 
being found away from water. I do not recollect ever seeing them perch on bush or tree, but always on some 
plant. Their note and jerky flight somewhat remind one of the Aleadow-Pipit ; during the nesting season in 
particular they will fly darting about high over head for several minutes, continually uttering their squeakv 
single note (whence the name of Tin-Tin), all the time evidently trying to decoy the intruder from their nest.” 
In spite of what I have already said about the European, African, and Asiatic Cisticoks being identical, I would 
here remark that the difference in the note of the European and the Indian bird, and likewise the extraordinary 
variety in the eggs of the former (allusion to which will presently be made), while those of the latter are all of 
the one type, is somewhat remarkable, and might well be considered sufficient to establish grounds for a slio'ht 
separation of the two races. As far as external characteristics go, I do not perceive that the African bird can 
be separated from the Indian, as has already been stated in this article ; and competent ornithologists affirm 
that there is no difference in the birds on both sides of the Aleditcrrancan. The diet of the species in Ceylon 
consists of many sorts of small insects and caterpillars j and Brehm says that “ the indigestible parts of the food, 
which consists of small beetles {Biptera), caterpillars, and little snails, arc thrown up in pellets.” It is with 
reference to observations made in Africa that this statement is made ; but I have no knowledge of the same 
thing having been noticed in India. Jerdon remarks that “ during the breeding-season the male bird may be 
seen seated on a tall blade of grass, pouring forth a feeble little song.-’"’ 
Nidification.— Warbler apparently has two broods in the year, nesting for its first in Alay, June, and 
July, and for the second in November and December. Its style of architecture is suited to the locality iu 
which it builds j but at all times it constructs a very beautiful little nest. It is, when built in tall grass or 
paddy, usually situated about 2 feet from the ground : a framework is first made by passing cotton or other 
such material round and through several stalks or stiff blades of grass ; when a tolerably secure wall is thus 
