THE MARSH WARHLKR'S MUSIC 211 



any note or phrase or song could be an imitation unless 

 the bird supix)scd to be imitated could be found in the 

 vicinity. Another bird 1 could not find in the place 

 was the grasshopper-warbler, yet one day one of the 

 birds I listened to produced what seemed to me a most 

 perfect imitation of its reeling performance. 



But how, the reader will ask, could the marsh 

 warbler have actjuired the redpoll's song seeing that the 

 redpoll would be far away in its breeding haunts in the 

 pine forests of the north when the warbler was in the 

 west country? Strange to say there was a small colony 

 of half a dozen redpoll pairs breeding in the hedgerow 

 elms at the side of the withy bed. My guide to the 

 spot had told me of these birds, and it was a rare 

 pleasure to listen in southern England to their slight 

 pretty song in the elm tops, with its curious little breezy 

 trill like a dry leaf rapidly fluttered by the wind against 

 another leaf. 



I did not hear an imitation of the blackbird's song, 

 although its chuckling notes were sometimes given, and 

 it struck me that the marsh warbler, good artist that 

 he is, does not attempt, like the bungling starling, to 

 reproduce sounds that are outside of his register. Other 

 listeners, however, have said that he does mimic the 

 blackbird's song. Then, as to the whinchat, in two 

 days' listening I heard no imitation of its song, although 

 the bird was present and building in the withy bed. I 

 thought that that little delicious tender song too was 

 beyond the warbler's power; but I was mistaken, and 

 by-and-by I heard it reproduced so perfectly that I 



