REED WARBLER. 159 



CHAPTER CXLIII. 



REED WARBLER. 

 (Acrocephalus Australis, Gould.) 



This is a useful and a charming little bird, which has 

 been placed by ornithologists as belonging to the family 

 of true thrushes. The colour is that given on the plate, 

 the bird, however, being somewhat smaller. It is migra- 

 tory, arriving usually in the early spring. The sexes are 

 alike in general appearance. The nests are usually built 

 in reeds, but sometimes in Polygonum or in bulrushes, 

 a twig of Polygonum being figured on our plate. The eggs 

 are usually three to four, and are well known, unfortunately, 

 to the egg-hunter. 



The Reed Warbler sings both by day and night. I shall 

 always look back with pleasure to a moonlight trip which 

 the celebrated artist, the late Miss North, and myself had 

 to secure this bird's nest and eggs in its natural position 

 for the British Museum. The song is very sustained and 

 melodious, rendering the bird a general favourite. 



Mr. Campbell says that on the margins of the Yarra 

 some of the Reed Warblers, on account of the absence of 

 reeds, suspend their nests in the drooping green tresses of 

 willows that hang over the river. As a rule, the Reed 

 Warbler builds over water ; but Mr. Campbell remarks 

 that instances are known where nests have been observed 

 on dry land about 50 paces from water in herbage such 

 as flowering stems of dockweed. 



This bird has somewhere been alluded to as a seed-eater, 

 but the good which it does far more than compensates for 

 the loss of seed it causes. Its principal food is larvae, 

 nocturnal moths, and small beetles, also flies and other 

 dipterous insects. 



