14 SUMMER VISITOES TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



habit of spending the day all last summer. One day he was 

 good enough not only to let me come quite close and look at 

 him, but even allowed me to bring some friends, one by one, 

 to see him too. His beautifully marked plumage harmon- 

 ized so well with the rock that it was quite difficult to point 

 him out, but he lay there blinking his eyes and did not seem 

 to mind a considerable amount of pointing and talking, and 

 only flew away when we were really too impertinent, and 

 tried to attract the attention of some friends who were some 

 way off. 



Let us now make an expedition in quite another direction, 

 and pay a visit to three members of one family who are not 

 very distantly related to the grasshopper warbler. These 

 three are members of the family AcrocephaluSy and are all to 

 be found close together on the banks of the Avon between 

 Bristol and Bath. They are the sedge warbler, reed 

 warbler, and marsh Avarbler. The first of the three is 

 generally very abundant in suitable ground, that is in osier 

 beds or hedges and bushes, as a rule not far from water of 

 some sort, though there need not be much of it. He is an 

 indefatigable singer, and his harsh but cheerful song can 

 often be heard by night as well as by day. He is some- 

 thing of a mimic, too, but not to be mentioned with his 

 cousin the marsh warbler in that respect. You will be 

 able to find plenty of his nests in all kinds of plants and 

 bushes, and the bird is easy to see, though he is so restless. 

 The reed warbler is not so obtrusive as the sedge 

 warbler ; he is much quieter and more restrained ; his song 

 is much sweeter and more gentle, though similar in many 

 ways to that of the sedge warbler. A glance at the birds 

 will enable you to distinguish between them at once, for the 

 sedge warbler has a very distinct light stripe just above the 

 eye, which is too faint in the reed warbler to be noticed. 



