warbler. This fact again, can be taken into account when the 
identity of one or other of these two is in question. 
The warblers are essentially birds of the country-side— 
they cannot abide the busy haunts of men, who seem unable to 
settle anywhere without setting up hideous tramways and ugly 
buildings. Kindly Nature is crowded out. The garden, hedgerow, 
and shady woods are the chosen haunts of the warblers, though 
some prefer the reed-grown stream, or the thickets round quiet 
pools. The reed and the sedge-warbler will be found here, but by 
no means easily so, for after the manner of their tribe they love 
seclusion. To find the reed-warbler you must go to reed-beds, 
or to osier-beds, and there watch for a little bird, chestnut-brown 
above, and white below. But for his constantly babbling chatter 
—‘ churra, churra, churra””—you would never, probably, find 
him. Guided, however, by his song, you may succeed in 
finding him nimbly climbing up and down the reed stems. Very 
like him is the rarer marsh-warbler : but, for your guidance, note 
that the marsh warbler has a really melodious song, and is even | 
more likely to be found in swampy thickets of meadow-sweet 
than the reed-beds. The sedge-warbler, though showing a decided 
preference for streams fringed by osier-beds and thickets, is more 
of a wanderer than the other two, since tangled hedgerows, and 
thickets, at a distance from the water will often suffice him. 
You may know him by the fact that he is of a dark brown colour 
82 
