PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 21 



They are thickly blotched and marbled with olive-brown and ashy grey on a greenish 

 white ground and sometimes have also a few blackish spots. A rare type has a pure 

 white ground and in some specimens the markings form dense caps at the big end. 

 (PI. D.) Average size of 100 eggs, -71 x -53 in. [18 x 13-5 mm.]. Laying begins 

 towards the end of May, but many birds are still building in the first half of June. 

 Incubation lasts 13-14 days and is apparently performed by the hen. There is 

 reason to believe that a second brood is occasionally reared in the southern counties, 

 although one brood is perhaps normal. [F. c. R. J.] 



5. Food. Insects, especially small flies and aphides, and in the autumn 

 berries. The young are fed by both parents on insects such as flies, lepidoptera, 

 and occasionally small dragon-flies, fw. F.] 



6. Song Period. From the time of its arrival to about the middle of 

 July. It has also been heard in September (British Birds, iv. 278: C. and H. 

 Alexander.) [w. F.] 



MARSH-WARBLER [Acrocephalus palustris (Bechstein). French, 

 r&usserolle verderolle ; German, Sumpfrohrsanger ; Italian, cannaiola 

 verdognola.] 



1. Description. The marsh- warbler can hardly be distinguished from the 

 reed-warbler. As a rule it is paler, more olive in tone above, and lacks the 

 rufous tinge on the rump ; the primaries are also slightly broader than in the reed- 

 warbler, and the emargination of the inner vane of the second primary does not 

 extend quite so far down the web. (PL 56.) The sexes are alike, and there is no 

 perceptible seasonal change of plumage. Length 5-25 in. [133 mm.]. The juvenile 

 plumage differs from that of the same period in the reed-warbler only in that the 

 under parts are more decidedly rufous, [w. p. p.] 



2. Distribution. Breeds locally in the southern counties of England and also 

 on the Continent, but not north of the Baltic or lat. 59 in Russia, while it is rare in 

 Southern Italy and absent from Greece. Closer observation has shown that its 

 range in England is more extensive than was formerly supposed to be the case, 

 and it has now been proved to breed in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, 

 Somerset, Gloucester, Worcester, Buckinghamshire, Oxford, and Cambridge. It 

 may possibly also breed in Norfolk and will probably be found to nest in Dorset 

 and Berkshire. It is most numerous in the western counties. Outside its breeding 

 range in winter it is distributed through tropical Africa, south to Rhodesia, 

 Portuguese East Africa, Natal, and Eastern Pondoland. [F. c. K. J.] 



