MICKOSCOPICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SECTION. 



March 16th, 1885. 



Thomas Alcock, M.D., President of the Section, 

 in the Chair. 



"On the breeding of the Reed Warbler, acrocephalas 

 arundinaceus, in Cheshire," by Francis Nicholson, F.Z.S. 



In the February number of the "Naturalist," there 

 appeared a letter from Mr. Chas. Oldham, of Sale, Cheshire, 

 in which he announced that on the 29th of May last, when 

 searching in company with Mr. T. A. Coward, of Bowdon, 

 for the eggs of the Sedge Warbler (acrocephalus phragmitis), 

 among the reedy margins of Pickmere, near Northwich, he 

 was agreeably surprised to find a nest of the Reed Warbler, 

 suspended on the reeds, and containing four eggs, &c. An 

 editorial note follows, saying that this is the most north- 

 westerly locality in which this species has been known to 

 breed in Britain, although it breeds regularly in Eastern 

 England, annually, as far north as mid Yorkshire. 



Mr. Nicholson showed that although it has not been 

 recorded to have nested, it has been known to him and most 

 of our local Ornithologists that it does so regularly on most 

 of the Cheshire meres that are suited to its habits. The 

 nest, as elsewhere, is fixed usually to three or four reed 

 stems, of the common English reed, Phragmitis communis, 

 and is one of the most beautiful of those of our British birds. 

 It is composed of slender blades of grass, interwoven with 

 reed tops, and is a deep and solid structure. The eggs cannot 

 easily roll out, and though the nest may be blown to the 

 surface of the water, the old and young ride as securely in 

 their cradle as a sailor does in his hammock. 



