THE GRASSHOPPER-WARBLER 



53 



are clearing, you may hear the birds "grinding" amongst 

 their coppice islets in that marshy sea, like some huge 

 cicadas, for three, four, ten, or even twenty minutes by your 

 watch, stopping merely to get breath, and going on till the 

 mists clear and the garish day exposes them to view, when 

 they rest for a space, beginning again at ten in the morning, 

 " grinding " through long spells with their heads thrown well 

 back and their eyes looking all around them over the green 

 marshland, the songs rising quicker and sounding shriller 

 until the birds stop for a moment, the intervals being of 

 different lengths, then continuing it for over an hour with a 

 few momentary stops, the song recalling the winding of a 

 spring steel-tape in different lengths, now stopping suddenly 

 for a moment, now being pulled out quicker and quicker, 

 then suddenly stopping. And so on at intervals the songs 

 — those mysterious voices — go on by day and night till the 

 end of summer, when the birds go to "grind" music upon 

 some far distant marshes. 



^i«^ 



grasshopper-warbler's nest and eggs. 



