n4 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



The nest of the Marsh- Warbler has been compared with that of the Grass- 

 hopper-Warbler which it is said greatly to resemble; it is formed of dry rounded 

 grass-stalks, sometimes intermixed with dead grass-leaves, vegetable fibre and 

 cobweb, and lined with finer grass, black horsehair and sometimes a little moss. 

 The eggs vary in number from five to seven; in colouring they are pale blue- 

 greenish, or greenish-white, spotted, blotched and streaked with olive-brown, often 

 with darker central spots and with violet-grey shell-spots. 



The song of this species is said to be far superior to that of the Reed- 

 Warbler ; Gatke hints at its resemblance to that of the Icterine- Warbler, but 

 Seebohm says that it recalls that of the Swallow, the L,ark, the Tree- Warbler, the 

 Nightingale, and the Bluethroat : " not so loud as that of the Nightingale, but 

 almost as rich and decidedly more varied." * If this is a correct description, the 

 Marsh- Warbler should be greatly sought after as a pet. 



Mr. Warde Fowler, in his " Summer Studies of Birds and Books," pp. 78-79, 

 thus describes the discovery of the Marsh- Warbler's nest in Switzerland: "At 

 the end of the long street which leads towards the Lake of Brienz, we passed out 

 into a spongy-looking and reedy tract, lying between the river Aar and some 

 cultivated ground just in the same position as the haunt of the Marsh- Warbler 

 at Meiringen. Here I proposed that we should follow a footpath which ran along 

 the river-side, and seemed likely to lead us to some bits of scrub and wild ground 

 which we could see about a quarter of a mile ahead. This scrub turned out to 

 consist of some kind of low-growing willow, with ditches and hollows overgrown 

 with long grass and meadow-sweet. My friend plunged into it, while I went on a 

 little further. Almost directly he called me back, and by the waving of his 

 umbrella I saw that he had made some discovery. It was indeed a discovery, it 

 was the nest of a Marsh- Warbler. There was the nest, and there too was the 

 bird, which continued to creep about the neighbourhood of the nest for some 

 minutes after we had disturbed her. There were four eggs in the nest, the beauty 

 of which will always dwell in my memory. They were of the same type as the 

 Reed-Warblers, but instead of being densely covered with greenish spots, their 

 ground colour was greenish-white, with many largish dull purple blotches, gathered 

 chiefly at the thicker end. The nest too was specially distinct from that of our 

 familiar Oxford bird ; it was of a slighter make, and not so deep, but the stalks 

 of the meadow-sweet had been drawn into its structure, much as the reeds or the 

 shoots of privet or lilac are used in the nest of the Reed- Warbler. It is worth 



* Mr. W. W. Fowler speaks of its imitating the Tree-Pipit, Lark, Swallow, Sedge-Warbler, Nightingale, 

 Chaffinch, Nuthatch, Great-Tit, White-Wagtail, &c., and he says that it sings best from six till ten in the 

 morning. A charming paper on the Marsh-Warbler's nesting habits appeared in the Zoologist, 1896, p.p., 286-288. 



