IOO OUR SUMMER MIGRANTS. 



eggs, taken at Whittlesford, which I have no 

 doubt belonged to palustris. 



In Badeker's work on the eggs of European 

 birds, it is stated that the Marsh Warbler "builds 

 in bushes, in meadows, and on the banks of 

 ditches, rivers, ponds, and lakes. The nest is 

 made of dry grass and straws, with panicles, 

 and interwoven with strips of inner bark and 

 horsehair outside. The rim is only very slightly 

 drawn in. It has a loose substructure, and is 

 by this and its half globular form, suspended on 

 dry ground between the branches of the bushes 

 or nettles, easily distinguished from the strongly 

 formed nest of S. strepera, which is moreover 

 built over water. 1 It lays five or six eggs the 

 beginning of June, which have a bluish-white 

 ground, with pale-violet and clear brown spots 

 in the texture of the shell, and delicate dark 

 brown spots on the surface, mingled with which 

 are a number of black dots. The ground 

 colour also in many fresh eggs is green, but 



1 Not always, as shown above. 



