MIMICRY OF REED-WARBLER 221 



by Mr. W. Warde Fowler. He heard one at 

 Meiringen, in the Oberland, Switzerland, which, 

 " besides the notes of birds, distinctly appeared to 

 me to take pleasure in imitating the sharpening of 

 a scythe, a sound frequently to be heard from an 

 adjoining field." Another deluded Mr. Warde 

 Fowler into the belief that a chaffinch was singing 

 in the same bush, and " once I fully believed I heard 

 the nuthatch's clear metallic note. He also mimicked 

 the skylark, the great tit, the white wagtail, the tree- 

 pipit, and the call of the redstart." Mr. Herbert C. 

 Playne (who subsequently watched marsh -warblers 

 with Mr. Warde Fowler in an osier-bed in Oxford- 

 shire) described this species to me as greatly excel- 

 ling the sedge-warbler or the reed-warbler in mimicry. 

 He states that the bird sings each imitation separately, 

 as though thinking a moment before every effort, and 

 that each of its attempts in this particular is wonder- 

 fully successful. 



Mimicry of the Reed-warbler 



A reed-warbler heard by me at Brimscombe, near 

 Stroud, imitated many times the cries of the starling, 

 including the common cry of alarm (the cah employed 

 as an alarm to the young), and the song of the 



