84 THE WARBLERS 



to my bad ear for music, and will quote from one of our best 

 authorities on the songs of birds, Mr. Warde Fowler. 1 "It is more 

 silvery, high-pitched, sweet, and varied than that of any other 

 species of warbler with which I am acquainted," and "The alarm- 

 note is much like that of the sedge-warbler, but higher in pitch 

 and less grating a kind of musical crake. . . . When much 

 excited, the birds, or possibly the male only, would utter a musical 

 and pleasing chirrup in the middle of the usual crake, and once 

 or twice I have known a bird almost break into song, as the sedge- 

 warbler sometimes does when angry." 



Limited as the marsh- warbler may be to mimicking the songs 

 of those birds which may be living in its vicinity, yet from the 

 published records of various observers it would appear to have 

 been fortunate in the variety of its neighbours. Even if a fair 

 discount be allowed for the imagination of the recorders, the list 

 is still a formidable one, and the authorities are good. Where not 

 otherwise stated it may be taken that the imitation was of the 

 " song " of the species given. 



A comical croak suggestive of a jackdaw, starling, chaffinch (call), 

 goldfinch (call), greenfinch (twitter followed by an attempt to produce 

 its call), sparrow, linnet, reed-bunting, corn-bunting (very distinct), 

 skylark (and call), tree-pipit, white-wagtail, yellow-wagtail (call), 

 thrush (call), blackbird, whitethroat, redstart (call), nightingale, black- 

 cap, whinchat (u-tic-tic), sedge-warbler, great-tit, swallow, nuthatch, 

 green-woodpecker and partridge (call very exactly), and "those 

 bubbling notes of the nightingale, which always occur in the song 

 of the marsh-warbler." To these may be added an imitation of 

 the sharpening of a scythe, and the croaking of a frog. 



This habit of mimicry did not escape the older observers, for 

 Count Miihle's description of its habits in Bree's Birds of Europe 

 includes the following passage: "It is a master of imitation, and knows 

 quite well how to blend in a delightful whole the different songs of 



\.Zoologist, 1906, pp. 408-9. 



