iv The Marsh Warbler 7 1 



osier-bed on a hot day in June. The willows must 

 be nearly twice as tall as you are yourself, planted 

 together in rows, with a drain or ditch between each 

 row ; and they must be covered with a thick foliage 

 of monotonous light green, just enough to let the 

 hot sun through. These osiers should also be full of 

 flies and midges, the one settling on your nose, and 

 the other biting your ears, at every moment when 

 you least desire such interruption. Their stems, for 

 three or four feet or more, should be hidden in an 

 undergrowth of long, dry, wiry grass, so thick that it 

 is hard to push through it, with heavily -odorous 

 meadowsweet just coming into bloom, and with that 

 peculiar zigzag -growing tangle of a plant which 

 leaves its seed-vessels sticking on you whenever you 

 touch it. The ditches between each row should be 

 just wet enough with recent showers to give your 

 feet a cold bath if you plunge into them unawares ; 

 and they should be just so carefully hidden by the 

 long dense grass as to lead you to forget again and 

 again that there is water beneath it. Choose an 

 osier bed of this pattern, and spend an hour or two 

 in it, with some eager purpose in your mind which 

 will not let you leave it, and you may at last feel 

 that you know something of what a mangrove swamp 

 is like, or what it is to try and force your way 

 through the tangle of an American forest. 



But what led me to expose myself to these petty 



