AQUATIC WARBLER. 359 
delights to hide. Tangled masses of wild roses, brambles, and thorn- 
bushes are also places where it is often found. Like all its congeners it 
is an active and restless bird, and is remarkably cautious and shy, con- 
- cealing itself on the least approach of danger. The Aquatic Warbler is 
said never to hop, but on a branch or on the ground to run almost like a 
mouse. The song is described as much like that of the Sedge-Warbler, 
but is said to be shorter and more rapidly executed, and to want the clear 
flute-like notes which make the ‘song of that bird so fine. Its food is 
insects ; and it is not known that it ever feeds upon fruit of any kind. 
Naumann says that this bird arrives in North Germany a week or two 
before the Sedge-Warbler, and is also a somewhat earlier breeder. Fresh 
eggs may be obtained in the last half of May. It never makes its nest 
amongst the reeds over the water, but chooses a bunch of sedge or water- 
plants near the bank, or a thorn or willow overgrown with rank herbage. 
The nest is never placed on the ground, but frequently only a few inches 
above it; seldom more than a foot or eighteen inches. It is suspended 
between the stalks of the plants which grow close to it, and which are 
woven into the sides. It is described as smaller than the nest of the 
Sedge-Warbler, somewhat roughly and carelessly finished outside, but 
inside very deep, round, and smooth. The foundation is of coarse grass, 
completed with fine round grass-stalks and roots, neatly lied with horse- 
hair. Occasionally spiders’ webs, the flowers of the cotton-grass, and - 
even feathers are used for its construction; but the final lining is said 
always to be horsehair. The number of eggs varies from four to five. 
They are brownish white in ground-colour, thickly mottled and clouded 
over the entire surface with yellowish brown, and sometimes with one or two 
streaks of dark brown. They vary in length from ‘7 to ‘67 inch, and in 
breadth from *52 to ‘5inch. It is impossible to give any character by 
which the eggs of this bird can be distinguished from those of the Sedge- 
Warbler. Those that I have examined are not perbaps so yellow in tint 
and may be a trifle smaller; but in a large series it is quite possible that 
these differences will be found to be only individual ones. 
The Aquatic Warbler has the general colour of the upper parts pale 
tawny brown. ‘The eye-stripe is very distinct, greyish white, and extends 
almost to the nape; and over each eye-stripe a broad, very dark-brown 
streak passes to the nape, leaving a narrow pale mesial line on the crown. 
Each feather of the rest of the upper parts, including the wing-coverts, 
innermost secondaries, and tail, has a more or less distinct dark brown 
centre, the quill feathers only being uniform brown. In abraded summer 
plumage the underparts are nearly white ; but in spring the throat and 
flanks are buffer, and in autumn the underparts are more or less suffused all 
over with buff. In many skins the lower throat and flanks are striated ; im 
this plumage they are the S. cariceti of Naumann. These striations occur 
