192 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



from tlie mieven tussucks, around which, the water flows 

 in the winter. How different now is the whole scene. 

 No dreary waste, but nature's garden in its gayest 

 colours. Wild flowers and ferns, in the richest pro- 

 fusion, cover the marshes with every variety of tint, and 

 the dwarf bushes of alder, sallow, or birch, are equally 

 luxuriant in their summer verdure. Mind how you 

 tread on this sofb rich moss, for many a little life 

 may unconsciously be sacrificed as we pick our way 

 over its yielding surface. See ! there, a black-headed 

 bunting, with trailing wing, as though badly injured, 

 is tumbling on before us — it is but a ruse to draw 

 us from the spot. Here's where she rose, and here 

 is the nest, with four callow young, snugly placed 

 beneath an overhanging tussuck, so well concealed 

 with moss and grasses, that we might have searched for 

 it in vain for hours. The sedge-birds' notes too are 

 heard from almost every bush, for here either at the 

 foot of the little trees, or like the buntings on the 

 open marsh, they chiefly build. That pair so anxiously 

 calling from the nearest alder, and nervously creepmg 

 amongst the leaves and branches, have some good 

 cause to wish us further. Let us stop and look, not in 

 the bush itself, but close to the stem amongst the coarse 

 grass and prickly undergrowth. See, there is the nest 

 with its little sombre-coloured eggs resting, but not sus- 

 pended, on the broken stems, and carefully hidden by 

 surrounding herbage. Titlarks on all sides are calling 

 from the taller bushes, springing into the air, vdth the 

 yhit, yhit, yhit, of their monotonous notes; or with 

 outspread wings and quickening song slowly descending 

 upon an open branch. Here, too, the reehng notes of 

 the grasshopper- warbler may be heard at day-break, but 

 rarely, indeed, later in the day, and so wary and mouse- 

 like are they in their actions, that it is next to impossible 

 to find their nests in such a locality. High overhead is 



