732 APPENDIX. 



made by the Sedge Reedling. As far as my observations have 

 gone respecting this bird, it does not haunt the hedge-rows, 

 either of hawthorn or sloe, hazle or white willow, after the man- 

 ner of the Sedge Reedling, but keeps closely concealed amongst 

 osiers, reeds, and equiseta. It clings to the reed stalks and 

 hangs about them in the same way as the pretty Goldfinch 

 clings to the thistle. The notes of the male are a hurried 

 chiddy, cliiddfj, ch'iddy^ cMt^ chit, clia^ cha, chit, chit. It is a 

 true polyglot, mocking in turn the Sparrow, Swallow, White- 

 throat, and Chaffinch, running from the note of one into that 

 of another."" 



JMr Durham Weir has favoured me with the following note : 

 " In mv former communication regardinii this bird, in the list 

 of the summer visitants of West Lothian, it ought to have been 

 stated, I have only known of one nest, supposed to have been 

 that of the Marsh Reedling. As I had not an opportunity of 

 seeing the birds themselves, nor of examining the nest out of 

 which the egg had been taken (the nest having been carried off 

 by some boys the day after the female had begun to sit), I 

 cannot give any decided opinion respecting it. The egg was 

 compared with several eggs of the Sedge Reedling, with which 

 it did not asfree, and as it had a strong reseml)lance to some 

 specimens said to be those of the Marsh Reedling, and very 

 nearly corresponded with the account given of them in several 

 works, it was thought by an able ornithologist to be one be- 

 longing to this species. As there is however such a difference 

 between the eggs even of the same bird, I frankly admit that 

 he might have been mistaken in his conjectures, and therefore 

 it must be received with doubt, until corroborated by more 

 extended observations."" 



CALAMOHERPE PHRAGMITIS. THE SEDGE 

 REEDLING. Vol. II, p. 390. 



" This bird,"" Mr Harley writes, " is much more widely dis- 

 persed over the midland counties than the Marsh Reedling. 



