78 THE WARBLERS 



improbable, however, that the latter species ever makes its nest in 

 reeds, although there is a record in the Zoologist by Mr. H. Beeston 

 of two nests, supposed to be of the marsh-warbler, found in the 

 centre of a reed-bed through which flowed a small stream, "sus- 

 pended about four feet above the ground, to four or five reeds, exactly 

 like a reed-sparrow's nest." One nest with two eggs was found and 

 taken on June 7th, another nest was found on June 15th with five 

 eggs. From this Mr. Beeston concluded that there must have been 

 two pairs in the reed-bed, " as there was not sufficient time . . . for 

 the same pair of birds to have constructed a new nest and completed 

 a second clutch of five eggs, unless it is possible for the birds to have 

 made the nest in three days and then commenced laying immediately 

 it was completed, which seems scarcely feasible." J This, however, if 

 a marsh-warbler, it might have done, as I shall show later. 



These nests and eggs were said to have been identified by 

 Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, and if correctly so, prove that palustris does 

 occasionally nest in reeds and over water too. 2 The reed- warbler 

 certainly does nest occasionally in reeds not growing in water and 

 also not infrequently in other plants and bushes far removed from 

 it. I have found nests in small reeds over dry ground, in the 

 branches of pollard willows, in tall overgrown osiers (a colony of 

 several nests 10 to 15 feet from the ground), in growing corn, 

 in lilac bushes in a garden separated from the river by a busy 

 road, in rushes, in bamboos, and also in a tangle of bramble and 

 rough herbage 3 the latter quite a typical marsh- warbler site, and 

 probably because the situation lent itself to a special structure, this 

 nest was decidedly of marsh-warbler type ; that is, it was less compact 

 than the usual reed-suspended nest, but lacked the marsh-warbler 

 "basket-handles." It will thus be seen that although sufficiently 



1 Zoologist, 1907, pp. 440449. 



2 Mr. P. C. B. Jourdam (in litt.) records a nest with eggs of the marsh- warbler found in the 

 west of England in 1910, built in reeds by a riverside ; " in exactly the site usually occupied by 

 the reed-warbler." 



" I have known a colony on a hillside quite half a mile from a river, and others among 

 lilacs in a garden a hundred feet above the Trent."- P. C. R. Jourdain (in litt.). 



