SEDGE WARBLER. 67 



SEDGE WARBLER. 



Acrocephalus Schcenobcznus ; Becfin Phragmite ; Schilf 

 Rohrsanger. 



Irish Nightingale. 



Bill and claws, brown ; head, dark brown ; back, 

 brown, tinged with grey ; throat, whitish; breast, darker; 

 broad yellowish-white stripe over the eyes ; tail, brown, 

 slightly rounded. Length, about four and a half inches. 



The Sedge Warbler may be said to be the only "Irish 

 member" of the aquatic Warblers, for the Reed Warbler, 

 so well known in England, has been only once obtained 

 in this country. The Sedge Warbler, on the contrary, 

 is plentiful enough, and may be heard, if not seen, in 

 the neighbourhood of nearly all our country ponds and 

 streams, provided only that they afford sufficient shelter 

 in the shape of reeds, sedges, and other aquatic plants. 

 The term " Riverain Warblers," as distinguished from 

 the sylvan, has been applied by Temminck to the Sedge 

 Warbler and to other kindred birds, whose absence from 

 our shores we can only lament, but not account for. 



The Sedge Warbler usually arrives before the end 

 of April, and leaves us again early in September ; 

 its song may be heard shortly after its arrival, and 

 the bird continues to sing up to the end of July, 

 if not longer. Different estimates have been formed 

 of the Sedge Warbler as a songster. Gilbert White 

 calls it "a delicate polyglot," and says that "it sings 

 incessantly day and night during the breeding-time 

 imitating the note of a sparrow, a swallow, a sky-lark," 

 and that it "has a strange hurrying manner in its 



