Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/391

Rh W A K W A R 367 haunts. In them generally it builds one of the most beautiful of nests, made of the seed-branches of the reed and long grass, wound horizontally round and round so as to include in its substance the living stems of three or four reeds, between which it is suspended at a convenient height above the water, and the structure is so deep that the eggs do not roll out when its props are shaken by the wind. Of very similar habits is the Heed-Thrush or Gieat Eeccl- Warbler, A. arundinaceus, a loud-voiced species, abundant on the Continent but very rarely straying to England. Much interest also attaches to the species known as Savi s Warbler, A. luscinioidcs, which M as only recognized as a constant inhabitant of the Fen- district of England a few years before its haunts were destroyed by drainage. The last example known to have been obtained in this country was killed in 1856. The nest of this species is peculiar, placed on the ground and formed of the blades of a species of Glyccria so skilfully entwined as to be a very permanent structure, and it is a curious fact that its nests were M ell known to the sedge- cutters of the district which it most frequented, as those of a bird with which they were unacquainted, long before the builder was recognized by naturalists. In coloration the bird somewhat re sembles a Nightingale (whence its specific name), and its song differs from that of any of those before mentioned, being a long smooth trill, pitched higher but possessing more tone than that of the Grass hopper-Warbler, A. neevius the Salicaria locuslclla of many authors which is a widely-distributed species throughout the British Isles, not only limited to marshy sites, but affecting also diy soils, in habiting indifferently many kinds of places where there is tangled and thick herbage, heather, or brushwood. In those parts of England where it was formerly most abundant it was known as the Rccler or Reel-bird, from its song resembling the whirring noise of the reel at one time used by the spinners of wool. The precise determination of this bird the Grasshopper Lark, as it was long called in books, though its notes if once heard can never be mistaken for those of a grasshopper or cricket, and it has no affinity to the Larks as an English species is due to the discernment of Gilbert White in 1768. In its habits it is one of the most retiring of birds, keeping in the closest shelter, so that it may be within a very short distance of an eager naturalist without his being able to see it, the olive-colour, streaked with dark brown, of its upper plumage helping to make it invisible. The nest is very artfully concealed in the thickest herbage. The foreign forms of Aquatic Warblers are far too numerous to be here mentioned. In the scheme already mentioned, a Subfamily Drymcecinae, with 15 genera and nearly 200 species, is recognized. That such a natural group may exist is quite likely, but about its composition and limits much doubt cannot fail to be entertained. If its existence be acknowledged, the remarkable genera Orlhotomus with about 12 and Cisiicola with some 30 species may bo fairly admitted as belonging to it. The former includes the Tailor-birds of the Indian region of which all have heard or read, for their habit of sewing together the leaves of plants so as to form a cone in which to build their nests has often been described and the fabric figured. Jerdon (B. India, ii. p. 166) writes of the common Indian Tailor-bird, 0. lonyicauda, that it &quot;makes its nest of cotton, wool, and various other soft materials/ and &quot; draws together one leaf or more, gene rally two leaves, on each side of the nest, and stitches them together with cotton, either woven by itself, or cotton thread picked up ; and, after passing the thread through the leaf, it makes a knot at the end to fix it.&quot; Cisticola, of which one species inhabits the south of Europe, follows the same trade on stems of grass, confining them by stitches above the nest, which assumes a globular form. In the same group Drymcecinaz is placed by some authors the Australian genus Muluriis, to which belong the birds known as &quot;Superb Warblers,&quot; and they are not inaptly so named, since in beauty they surpass any others of their presumed allies. Part of the plumage of the cocks in breeding-dress is generally some shade of intense blue, and is so glossy as to resemble enamel, while black, white, chestnut, or scarlet, as well as green and lilac, are also present in one species or another, so as to heighten the eflect. But, as already stated, there are systematists who would raise this genus, which contains some 15 species, to the rank of a distinct Family, though on what grounds it is hard to say. Of the other Subfamilies, Saxicolinie, SylminsB, and Phylloscopinx, will be conveniently treated under AViiEATFAR, WHITETHISOAT, and [Willow-] WREN (qq.v. while the Ihilidllinx have been already mentioned under NIGHTINGALE, REDBKEAST, and REDSTAKT, and the Acccntorinse under [Hedge-] SI-AUUOW. The birds known as &quot; American Warblers,&quot; forming what has now for a long while been almost universally recognized as a distinct Family, Mniotiltidse, remain for consideration. They possess but nine instead of ten primaries, and are peculiar to the New World. More than 130 species have been described, and these have been grouped in 20 genera or more, of which members of all but three are at least summer-visitants to North America. As a whole they are much more brightly coloured than the Sylnidss (Mahirus, &quot;if it belongs to them, always excepted) ; for, though the particular genus Mniotilta (from which, as the fortune of nomenclature will have it, the Family takes its right name) 1 is one of the most abnormal its colours being plain black and white, and its habits rather resembling those of a TKEE-CKEEI-ER (q. v. ) in other groups chestnut, bluish-grey, and gieen appear, the last varying from an olive to a saffron tint, and in some groups the yellow predominates to an extent that has gained for its wearers, belonging to the genus Dcndrceca, the name of &quot;Golden&quot; Warblers. In the genus Scto- phaga, the members of which deserve to be called &quot; Fly-catching&quot; Warblers, the plumage of the males at least presents yellow, orange, scarlet, or crimson. Dr Cones (Key N.-Am. Birds, ed. 2, p. 288), following on the whole the arrangement of Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (N.-Am. Birds, i. p. 178), separates the whole Family (for which he arbitrarily retains the name Sylmcolidx] into three Sub families, Syhicolinse ( = Mniotiltinse), Idcriinae, and Scto])haginae, grouping the genera Mniotilta, Panda, and Pcucedromns as &quot; Creep ing Warblers&quot;; Geothlypis, Oporornis, and Siuriis as &quot; Ground - Warblers&quot;; Protonotaria, Hclmintliotherus, and Jlclminthojyhila as &quot; Worm -eating Warblers&quot;; Sctoplmga, Cardcllina, and Myiodioctcs as &quot;Fly catching Warblers&quot;; Ictcria, which perhaps may not belong to the Family, standing alone; and Dcndroeca as &quot;Wood- Warblers &quot; The Mniotiltidsz contain forms exhibiting quite as many diverse modes of life as do the Sylviidas. Some are exclusively aquatic in their predilections, others affect dry soils, brushwood, forests, and so on. Almost all the genera are essentially migratory, but a large proportion of the species of Dcndroeca, Sctophacja, and especially Basilcuterus, seem never to leave their Neotropical home ; while the genera Lcucopcza, Tcrctristis, and Alicroligia, comprising in all but 5 species, are peculiar to the Antilles. The rest are for the most part natives of North America, where a few attain a very high. latitude, 2 penetrating in summer even beyond the Arctic Circle, and thence migrate southward at the end of summer or in the fall of the year, some reaching Peru and Brazil, but a few, as, for instance, Panda pitiayumi and Gcolhlypis vclata seem to be resident in the country last named. To return, in conclusion, to the Sylviid, or true Warblers, it is to be hoped that before long some com petent ornithologist will take on himself the task, necessary if toilsome and perhaps ungrateful, of revising the work that has lately been done upon them and upon the Turdidse, and, setting aside all preconceived notions except that of aiming at the truth, without prejudice fix the limits of the two Families, if Families they be, and at the same time adjust the relations of the hitherto very indefinite group T-imeliidx. (A. N.) WARBURTON, ELIOT BARTHOLOMEW GEORGE (1810- 1852), traveller and novelist, born in 1810 near Tullamore, Ireland, made a hit with his first book, The Crescent and the Cross. It was a book of Eastern travel, in Turkey, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and fairly divided public attention with Mr Kinglake s Eothen, &quot;which appeared in the same year, 1844. Interest was centred in the East at the time, and Warburton had popular sympathy with him in his eloquent advocacy of the annexation of Egypt ; but, apart from this harmony with the tastes of the time, the traveller had so many adventures, told them with such spirit, de scribed what he saw with such picturesque vigour, and sketched character with such animation and generosity, that the success of the book on its merits was perfectly legitimate. &quot;Varburton was an Irishman, with an Irish man s rhetoric and spirit of adventure, who, after an educa tion at Cambridge, was called to the Irish bar, tried to settle down on his paternal estate, but very soon abandoned the management of his tenants for a life of nobler excitement. His first success as an author tempted him to try again, but he had unhappily a short career, and did not again equal The Crescent and the Cross. His most substantial work was a Memoir of Prince Ifujjert, published in 1849, enriched with original documents, and written with eloquent partiality for the subject. This Avas followed in 1850 by a novel, Rei/inahl Hastings, the scenes of which 1 By some writers the Family is called Sylvicolidse, a practice which contravenes the ordinary usage of nomenclaturists, since the name Syhicola in ornithology is preoccupied by its employment in con- chology. 2 Seven species have been recorded as wandering to Greenland, and one, Dendrocca virens, is said to have occurred in Europe (A&quot;au- mannia, 1858, p. 425)