396 CALAMOHERPE ARUNDINACEA. 



equal. The tail is rather long, straight, and considerably 

 rounded, the lateral feathers being three twelfths shorter than 

 the middle. 



The upper mandible is light brown, the lower pale flesh- 

 colour tinged with yellow, toward the end brown. The tarsi 

 and toes are yellowish-brown, the claws a little darker. The 

 general colour of the upper parts is pale reddish brown, with- 

 out dusky spots ; the quills a little darker. The fore part of 

 the neck is white ; the rest of the lower parts is pale greyish- 

 yellow. 



Length to end of tail 5i inches; bill along the ridge j%, 

 along the edge of lower mandible /^ ; wing from flexure 2/^ ; 

 tail 2^%. 



Female. — The female is somewhat smaller, but otherwise 

 similar to the male. 



Habits. — The Marsh Reedling has not hitherto been observ- 

 ed in Scotland, nor in the northern counties of England. It 

 frequents marshy places margined or overgrown with reeds and 

 other aquatic plants, among which it searches for its food, in- 

 sects, worms, and slugs, in the hideling manner of the Sedge 

 Reedling ; with which no doubt it is frequently confounded, 

 It arrives in the end of April, and returns southward in Sep- 

 tember. Its song is loud, cheerful, much diversified, and 

 sometimes performed at night. Its nest differs from that of 

 the Sedge Reedling in being composed of blades and stalks of 

 grass, lined with fine grass and hair, fastened to the stalks of 

 several reeds at some height from the ground, of an obconical 

 form, from four to five inches in depth externally, about three 

 internally, and as much in breadth at the top. Being thus 

 deep, as Montagu remarks, it " gives security to the eggs, 

 which would otherwise be thrown out by the wind."" They 

 are four or five in number, eight and a half twelfths long, 

 nearly six twelfths in breadth, greyish-brown, faintly dotted 

 and spotted with greenish-brown, and usually having one or 

 two blackish irregular lines. The young are fledged by the 

 middle of July. 



