SYLVIADA. 99 
is, the bottom does not touch the ground or rest 
upon a branch. It must be generally well concealed, 
as I have never been able to find one, although the 
birds are numerous in our brook; but then I ama 
very bad bird-nester. 
The appearance of the Sedge Warbler is as 
follows:—The beak is brown; head olive-brown, 
streaked with dusky; a streak of dull dirty white 
extends from the base of the upper mandible over 
the eye; cheeks, sides and back of the neck olive- 
brown; back and scapulars the same, the centre of 
each feather being dusky; rump and tail-coverts 
olive-brown, with a tinge of rufous; throat, breast 
and belly white in the centre, with a tinge of yellow 
on the sides (the breast of one of my specimens, a 
young bird of the year, is spotted with dusky); quills, 
primaries and secondaries dusky; tertials dusky, 
edged with light brown (in the young birds the pri- 
maries and secondaries are also edged with brown) ; 
tail dusky; legs, toes and claws pale brown. 
The egg is about the same size as that of the last 
species; of a pale olive-brown ground, speckled with 
a darker shade. 
REED WarBLER, Salicaria arundinacea. I have 
never seen a specimen of the Reed Warbler in these 
parts, but I am told that it is not uncommon in the 
neighbourhood of Bridgwater, and that it builds 
there amongst the reeds growing in some of the 
ponds made near the railway by digging out earth 
K 2 
