116 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



flax-like substance, procured from the willow, (Salix ?) 

 and mixed with sheep's wool, feathers, and a few black 

 horsehairs. They are for the most part very compactly 

 made, and in some cases will bear much handling with- 

 out disarranging the materials, yet this is not always 

 the case, as I have seen some taken on Hickling broad, 

 built on very slender reeds, and so loosely constructed, 

 that I wondered they held together at all; but at the 

 spot where these were found, the ground was covered 

 with a sort of wild convolvulus or creeper, whose tendrils 

 encircling both the reeds and nests had a very pretty 

 appearance, and afforded an unusual support. The ordi- 

 nary number of reeds selected is three, round which the 

 materials are firmly woven, so as to include them all in 

 the structure, whilst the nest is placed with instinctive 

 judgment, neither low enough to be affected by the 

 rising of the water, nor yet high enough to be influenced 

 too powerfully by the wind. Occasionally a nest may be 

 found on four reeds, and I once found one on five, and 

 another on two, but these cases are rare. Arriving here 

 later than the sedge warblers, the nests of the reed 

 birds are seldom completed before the end of May, and 

 the young are hatched about the first week in July. In 

 1852, a reed-warbler's nest was found built in a small 

 bush near a pond at Bracon Ash, but even in this 

 unusual situation its general character was preserved, 

 being suspended on three twigs of the bush, built into it 

 in place of the reeds. This is one of the very few 

 instances in which I have known these birds to breed in 

 any locality not adjacent to reed beds ;* but at Kan- 

 worth, where the broad joins the garden of Mr. John 



* " In the ' Zoologist' for 1864, p. 9109, is a very interesting 

 description by Mr. R. Mitford, of the nesting of this species in a 

 garden at Hampstead, near London, ' far away from water in any 

 shape/ " the nests being constructed in lilac and other shrubs. 

 Mr. Hewitson also cites several similar instances. 



