THE REED-BUNTING. l21 



under, wetting you frequently to above the ankle. The nests are not con- 

 spicuous, are partly overhung by wiry grass-tussocks or sedge, and might easily 

 be overlooked, excepting for the presence of the birds which .causes one to search 

 for them carefully : but to men whose eyes have been trained, as Entomologists, 

 from their boyhood, and who have been accustomed to recognize and pounce 

 upon tiny ground insects, a bird's nest is a very large and conspicuous object, 

 however cleverly concealed. This is a very strong argument against the theory 

 as to the cause of mimicry in nature ; for it seems to me absurd to argue that 

 insectivorous birds, whose eyesight is so keen and quick that they can follow 

 every movement of the tiniest insect on the wing, should, when anxious for food, 

 be deceived by the vague resemblance of a conspicuous moth to a dead leaf;* 

 that the powerful vision of a predacious bird should be utterly unable to detect a 

 sitting bird on account of her subdued colouring, or her nest because its walls 

 were decked with lichen. That mimicry does exist we know ; that it renders 

 objects less conspicuous to the uninterested onlooker, and therefore may be in a 

 measure protective, is probable; but that it exists with any definite intention, is 

 no more than a guess. 



Lord Lilford's view as to the site usually selected for the nest of the Reed 

 Bunting coincides with my own limited experience, for he says : " All the nests 

 which we have met with were situated on the ground, or the crust formed by 

 the roots of the common reed." Hewitson, however, in the third edition of his 

 " Eggs of British Birds," observes : " I have, though rarely, found them at an 

 elevation of two feet or more above the water, and supported by a branch of the 

 common reed, not fixed like the nest of the Reed- Warbler, attached to the perpen- 

 dicular stems, but supported upon a bunch of them which had been prostrated 

 by the wind." Sometimes the nest is placed in young spruce firs, and it is 

 often found in herbage on a bank. 



The materials of the nest seem to vary considerably : all mine are formed 

 of fine dead grasses and a few bents, or coarser bents with a blade or two of 

 broad-grass ; and are lined with very fine grass and horsehairs, or fine grass 

 alone. Stevenson's nests seem to have been formed of fine bents and lined with 

 the feathery tops of reeds. Lord Lilford's were composed of moss and sedge, 

 with a lining of reed tops, and sometimes a little hair. Seebohm mentions 

 withered leaves of rushes as one of the materials employed, and Howard Saunders 

 speaks of withered flags. The eggs number from four to six, and are of various 



* As a matter of fact my own experiments conclusively proved that they were not deceived, but only 

 slightly puzzled for a moment or two; the resemblance to an insect being evidently more apparent to the bird 

 than its similarity to a crumpled leaf. 



VOL. n. U 



