OUR BRITISH SONG BIRDS. 69 
The Wood Warbler and Willow Warbler are also found 
near Burton—the Willow Warbler being the more plentiful. 
The Wood Warbler’s song is a merely repetition of the 
syllables ‘‘Chee-chee,” but that of the Willow Warbler is 
much more varied, consisting of many modulations of the 
voice, which rise and sink in sweet cadence as the bird sits 
with drooping wings and elevaicd crests on some prominent 
twig. 
The tiny Gold-crest, which is more common than is 
generally supposed, and approaches quite close to Burton, 
possesses a soft, gentle twittering voice, frequently uttered 
as it hangs half-suspended from the fir branches after the 
manner of the Titmice, or darts with fiery activity from 
twig to twig, busily looking for prey, or hovers for an 
instant above the favoured bough beneath which its tiny 
nest is slung. 
The Reed Warbler and the Sedge Warbler are most 
assiduous singers, carolling their curious songs at all hours 
of the day and night, in fact, it is only necessary to throw 
a stone into the haunts of either of these little birds to set 
it singing with might and main at any time during the 
twenty-four hours. I have heard the Sedge Warbler sing- 
ing at midnight. Its song is a hurried, babbling chatter, 
delivered from the summit of a willow-bush or clump of 
reeds, and at times, the bird rises into the air on quivering 
pinions, and poises itself an instant to sink again upon the 
same perch with tail outspread and upraised wings. The 
Reed Bird’s notes are harsher and not particularly musical, 
and the amusing way in which it is uttered somewhat 
remind the observer of the Starling’s favourite style, as he 
sits with puffed-out throat and drooping wings chanting his 
canticle from some cottage roof. 
Like the Reed Warbler, the Reed Bunting dwells by the 
water side, and must be familiar to most Burtonians, but 
its call note resembles that of other Buntings, and its song, 
