PASSERES. ( 75 ) SYLVIIDAE. 



THE SEDGE WAEBLEK 



SEDGE-BIRD, SEDGE WREN. 



Ac7'ocephalus sclioenohoenus. 

 %%z »)C0tc!) ijjifflitinffale* 



Fixed in a white-thorn bush, its summer guest. 



So low, e'e?i grass oUr-topped its tallest twig, 



A Sedge-Bird built its little beniy nest. 



Close by the meadow pool aiid wooden brig. 



Where schoolboys every morn and eve did pass. 



In seeki?ig nests, atid finding, deeply skilled. 



Searching each bush and taller clump of grass, 



Where'er was likelihood of bird to build. 



Yet did she hide her habitation long, 



And keep her little brood from danger's eye, 



Hidden as secret as a cricket's song. 



Till they, well-Jiedged, o'er widest pools could fly : 



Proving that Providetice is ever nigh 



To gttard the simplest of her charge from wrong. 



Clare, The Sedge-Bird's Nest. 



Although the Sedge Warbler frequents many suitable locali- 

 ties in Berwickshire regularly every summer, yet, owing to 

 its habit of keeping itself concealed in the midst of thick 

 bushes and tangled herbage, it is not so well known as some 

 of our other warblers. It is a summer visitor, generally 

 arriving here from the south between the first and the third 

 week of May, and departing southwards again in September. 

 Its usual haunts are thickets of stunted willows^ or 



1 Salix cinerea, the Grey Saugh. " In peat bogs on all our moors, on banks, 

 in deans, and in hedges, it often forms a little thicket, especially in oozy ground, 

 by the sides of our muirland or dean burns, and these are favourite resorts of 

 our song birds." — Dr. Johnston's Botany oftlie Eastern Borders, p. 181. 



