Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/85

Rh somewhere near. A few breed in thick hedges, and it was in one of these that I found the only pair breeding away from water of some kind that I have ever found. This was in 1897, when a pair bred in a thick hedge next to a field of corn. They are plentiful enough in this county—you might almost call them common—but, on account of their shy and retiring habits, they are little known and easily passed over.

In the number of arrivals there is great variation—more, I think, than with any of the other migrants; and, if they are plentiful one year, and the young are successfully reared. I have as often as not found that they come in exceptionally few numbers the next year. The year 1897 I remember well, as they visited us in greater numbers than usual. In one osier-bed, about a quarter of a mile long, I found six different pairs; the next year, in the same osier-bed, only one pair, although the conditions appeared to be just the same. In order to see the Grasshopper-Warbler at its best you must watch it for the first few hours after dawn—and indeed this may be said of all birds during the summer months; but at no time is Locustella nævia so lively as during the first two hours of daylight, and at no time of the year is it so amusing as during the last week in April and the first week in May. It is then that the females arrive, and they begin to mate. It will repay anyone to sit still for an hour or two at dawn to watch them. The female then walks along amongst the undergrowth, threading her way in and out, sometimes pecking or pretending to peck at something; the male follows a few feet behind, at times picking up a dead leaf in his bill, and carrying it for some distance while following the female, apparently with no object, unless it is a gentle reminder to her that he wishes to commence nesting operations. These operations are generally disturbed by the appearance of another male on the scene, and at once they set to and chase one another, now and then in their excitement settling on a bush and singing for a few seconds; the flight when this goes on is, as a rule, very rapid, and it is not long before he returns to the female and again commences to walk after her, varying the operation at times by crawling up to the top of a bush and commencing to sing.

Directly they are paired they commence nesting operations, the male at this time singing a great deal in the mornings, some-