96 SYLVIIDiE. 
day^ going over the same ground^ one would find a nest in a 
bunch of sedges which had been passed by within a yard. 
The nests were all alike, loosely and clumsily built^ solely 
constructed of dead sedge, often placed so close to the water 
that the base was wet ; they were always in the open marsh, 
none, that I saw, under bushes or in tall rushes or reeds. 
The single nest that was not in sedges was in a tuft of the 
spiky rush so common in wet ground. In this case (the 
first one, found by Mr. Denisou) the bird flew off — the only 
instance in which it did so, as they creep off generally like 
a mouse. On one occasion I cut away all the sedge round 
the nest, except just the patch in which it was built, as I 
wanted to shoot the bird from the nest to make certain of 
the identity of the eggs ; but even then, after watching the 
old bird go in to the nest she would not fly off, hat ran 
across the open space which I had cut away till she gained 
the shelter of the uncut sedges. Much more frequently seen 
than Cetti's Warbler, the great difficulty is in finding them when 
shot. If killed on the wing, it is almost hopeless to look for 
them ; and those that I did obtain I have to thank my dog 
for finding, though he did spoil one or two. They are most 
easily to be got in the morning and evening, when the male 
perches on a sallow bush or tall reed and sings his grass- 
hopper-like song, or rather whir. 
I only found them in one particular locality : in other 
marshes, very similar in appearance, I failed to hear or see 
them ; and they probably require a very large extent of sedge. 
The eggs are of a whitish ground-colour, marked all over 
with minute spots of brown, thicker at the larger end, often 
forming a well-marked zone. Sometimes the ground-colour 
is buff; but I only saw two or three of this hue. 
The head, wings, and tail are reddish brown, the tail 
indistinctly barred with darker bands of brown, and cunei- 
form in shape. The length is about 6 inches, extent from 
wing to wing 7^. Legs and feet pale brown, the claws 
/^, darker; irides olive-brown; upper mandible dirty white, 
with dusky tip ; lower one blackish ; inside of mouth of adult 
i/t 
pale salmon-colour, that of young bright yellow. 
