240 SYLVIID.E. 



in the centre, and two inches in depth. The nest varies considerably in size and materials 

 according to the position in which it is placed. One now before me, built against a thick 

 bamboo-cane, near where several thin leafy upright stems spring from the stalk, is a very 

 deep cup-shaped structure, and is formed of portions of dried leaves, plant-down, dried grasses, 

 and several pieces of thick soft string used for tving plants. This nest measures five inches 

 and a half in height, and was built in a clump of bamboos in a nursery at Redfern, a suburb 

 adjoining the city of Sydney. Two other nests shown to Dr. Kamsay and myself in the same 

 nursery, were built between dock stems. With the exception of a small waterhole in the 

 garden, they were far removed from permanent water. The nest is usually built between 

 several upright reeds within two or three feet of the surface of the water, occasionally in droop- 

 ing branches of trees overhanging or trailing in the water, and not infrequently it is placed 

 in rank weeds or bamboo clumps some distance from water. When built between reeds, I have 

 frequently found several at a distance of a yard or little more apart. In my early collecting 

 days, the nests of this species were among the first I procured. A favourite resort of Reed 

 Warblers, also of a number of water-fowl, was the reed-covered sheet of water, with open 

 expanses here and there, at the back of the boat-sheds on the south side of the Yarra, near 

 Prince's Bridge, Melbourne. On the Lower 'i'arra, too, the nests of these birtls w^ere very 

 common in the late spring months. In this locality the ad\antage of having the nest wider in 

 the centre and contracted at the rim was exhibited when a passing steamer would wash the 

 water over the river banks and cause the reeds to sway in a violent manner from side to side. 

 Near Sydney, Reed Warblers breed every season in the reeds or bulrushes in Centennial Park 

 and Botany Water Reserve, but their nests are more numerous in the reed-lined margins of 

 Cook's and George's Rivers. .\ nest in the .Australian Museum collection, taken by Mr. S. W. 

 Moore on Mooki Station, Liverpool Plains, on the nth November, igo2, and containing three 

 eggs, was built in an elm. .\nother, received from Mr. H. L. White, and taken at Belltrees, 

 Scone, on the 17th November, 1902, with three fresh eggs, was built in a mulberry tree some 

 distance from water. 



The eggs, usually three, sometimes four in number for a sitting, are oval or compressed 

 oval in form, the shell being close-grained and its surface glossy in some specimens, dull and 

 lustreless in others. In ground colour they vary from faint bluish or greyish-white to pale 

 yellowish-brown, which is finely freckled, spotted, or blotched with different shades of umber, 

 brown, olive, and grey, the latter colour as a rule appearing as if beneath the surface of the 

 shell. All the larger markings are irregularly shaped, in some specimens they are penumbral, 

 in others one colour partially overlies another, and occasionally they are of a blackish-brown, 

 or of a smeared ink-like hue. .\s a rule the markings, both large and small, are irregularly 

 distributed over the surface of the shell, in other instances they are confined principally to the 

 larger end, but it is very rarely they assume the form of a zone. A set of three, taken at 

 Cook's River on the 7th October, 1896, measures: — Length (A) o-78xo'55 inches; (B) 077 x 

 0-55 inches; (C) 079 x 0-56 inches. A set of four, taken in the same locality on the 6th 

 December, 1897, measures: — Length (A) o-8i x 0-36 inches; (B) 0-82 x 0-55 inches; (C) 079 x 

 o'58 inches; (D) o'8i x o'55 inches. 



In New South Wales the breeding season of the Reed Warbler commences in September 

 and continues until the end of February, during which time two broods are reared. Although 

 eggs may be found from the third week of September until the end of December, nests with 

 eggs are more numerous during October and November. Many nests, however, contain young 

 birds at the end of October. 



