232 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



the other. When the young are able to fly, however, the 

 Reed- Warblers are often to be seen in the bushes, accom- 

 panied by their families, and in certain places they form quite 

 a little colony, the old birds feeding the young of the second 

 brood, while the first brood are flying about in the neighbour- 

 hood also. The species is even said to nest far away from 

 water; and Mr. Mitford says that he has known them to build 

 in lilac-bushes in his garden at Hampsttad. 



Nest. Made of dry grass and roots, with a little wool or 

 thistle-down. When built in the reeds, some of the latter are 

 generally intertwined in the nest. 



Eggs. From four to six; in number. Ground-colour, 

 greenish-white or greyish-white, and thickly mottled and 

 spotted with greenish-brown, often collecting round the larger 

 end of the egg, and forming a broad ring. The underlying 

 spots of violet-grey are so mixed with the overlying mark- 

 ings as to be difficult of observation, but they are in reality 

 very numerously represented. Axis, 07-075 inch; dkun., 

 0-5-0-55. 



THE MARSH-WARBLER. ACROCEPHAT.US PALUSTRIS. 



Sylvia palustris, Bechst , Orn. Taschenb., p. 186 (1802). 

 Acrocephalus palustris, Dresser, B. Eur., ii., p. 573, pi. 87, 



fig. 2 (1876); Seeb., Cat. B. Brit. Mus., v., p. 101 



(1881); id. Br. B., i., p. 375 (1883); B. O. U. List Br. 



B., p. 19 (1883) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Br. B., pt. iii. (1886); 



Saunders, Man., p. 93 (1889). 



Adult Male. Similar to the Reed- Warbler, and very difficult 

 to distinguish from that species, but it may be recognised by 

 the olive tone of the plumage, which does not show the red- 

 dish-brown colour of the rump, which is always more or less 

 perceptible in the Reed- Warbler. The feet are also said to be 

 pale horn-brown, instead of slaty-brown as in the last-named 

 bird. Mr. Seebohm gives the measurements of the wing in the 

 Reed- Warbler as from 2*35-27 inches,and of the Marsh- Warbler 

 from 2 '45 to 2 '8 ; but we find that in the few undoubted speci- 

 mens of the latter bird in the British Museum the wing is de- 

 cidedly longer in A. palustris than in A. streperus, and extends 

 further down the tail; that is to say, its tip reaches to at least two- 



