210 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



always a very sweet silvery individuality about the song, 

 which makes it quite unmistakable." In that native 

 quality of the voice, its silvery sweetness, it comes 

 nearest, I think, to the reed warbler's song. Its silvery 

 sweet quality is indeed the principal merit of this 

 warbler's strains, which can only be properly appre- 

 ciated when the listener stands or sits on a level with 

 the reeds within a very few yards of the singer. 



Listening to the marsh warbler at some distance it 

 seemed to me at first that he sang his own song inter- 

 spersed with imitations, that the borrowed songs and 

 phrases were selections which accorded best with his 

 own notes, so that the whole performance was like one 

 ever-varying melody. On a closer acquaintance I found 

 that the performance was mainly or nearly all imitations 

 in which the loud, harsh, and guttural sounds were 

 subdued and softened — that the mocker's native silvery 

 sweetness had in some degree been imparted to all of 

 them. The species whose songs, detached phrases, and 

 calls I recognized were the swallow, sparrow, goldfinch, 

 greenfinch, chaffinch, redpoll, linnet, reedbunting, black- 

 bird (its chuckle only), throstle, missel-thrush (its alarm 

 or anger cry), blackcap, willow-wren, robin, redstart, 

 whinchat, yellow wagtail, tree-pipit, skylark, and 

 partridge — its unmistakable call, but subdued and made 

 musical. There were also some notes and phrases that 

 seemed perfect copies from the nightingale, but I would 

 not say that they were imitations as there were no 

 nightingales at that spot, and I came to the listening 

 in a sceptical spirit, quite resolved not to believe that 



