60 Oxford: Spring and Early Summer. 



There is no great difficulty in distinguishing 

 Sedge- and Reed-warblers, if you have an eye for 

 the character of birds. The two are very dif- 

 ferent in temperament, though both are of the 

 same quiet brown, with whitish breast. The 

 Sedge-bird is a restless, noisy, impudent little 

 creature, not at all modest or retiring, and much 

 given to mocking the voices of other birds. This 

 is done as a rule in the middle of one of his long 

 and continuous outpourings of chatter ; but I one 

 day heard a much more ridiculous display of im- 

 pertinence. I was standing at the bottom of the 

 Parks, looking at a pair or two of Sedge-warblers 

 on a bush, and wondering whether they were going 

 to build a nest there, when a Blackbird emerged 

 from the thicket behind me, and seeing a human 

 being, set up that absurd cackle that we all know 

 so well. Instantly, out of the bush I was looking 

 at, there came an echo of this cackle, uttered by 

 a small voice in such ludicrous tones of mockery, 

 as fairly to upset my gravity. It seemed to say, 

 "You awkward idiot of a bird, I can make that 

 noise as well as you : only listen ! " 



The Reed-warbler, on the other hand, is quieter 



