THE MARSH-WARBLERS 83 



also singing, and altogether it formed the greatest orchestra of reed- 

 warbler song I have ever heard. There being so many nests in so 

 small an area, no doubt caused a stimulus to the habit of pre- 

 servation of territorial rights, and consequently to its manifestation 

 in song. 



All the members of the family are given to mimicking the songs 

 of other birds. An imperfect ear for music makes it difficult for me, 

 personally, to distinguish anything beyond a mere blending of strange 

 notes. I have been unable to identify the owners of the borrowed 

 notes. But others with better ears have done so with certainty. In 

 the song of the sedge-warbler have been distinguished the songs of 

 such birds as the whitethroat, blackbird, chaffinch, tree-pipit, and the 

 call-note of the partridge. 1 Charles Kingsley, who knew the songs of 

 birds, even perhaps more intimately than is conveyed in his poetical 

 impressions in " A Charm of Birds," wrote of the sedge-warbler, " And 

 the sedge-bird, not content with its own sweet song, mocks the song of 

 all the birds around." 



Other sounds are also mimicked, e.g. the croaking of frogs. I 

 have heard the great reed-warbler in Southern Spain uttering what 

 struck me very forcibly as an imitation of the parx, parx, of the frogs 

 that abound in the swamps. 



The greatest mimic, and the greatest songster of the group, 

 so great in fact that it may rank with the blackcap and nightingale, 

 is the marsh-warbler. Strange that this bird, so like the reed-warbler 

 in appearance as to make it almost impossible to distinguish dry 

 skins of the two species one from the other, differs from it so 

 essentially in bearing and general nesting habits, and has moreover 

 a song which, although having much in common with all the species 

 of the family, yet possesses a melody of a richness and variety that 

 places it for comparison outside the whole group. When I first heard 

 it, it gave me the impression of the song of a reed-warbler with 

 the voice and execution of a blackcap, but I have already confessed 



1 British Warblers, Part I. p. 12. 2 Prose Idylls, Kingsley, p. 06. 



