PLATE I 

 SEDGE WARBLER. Acrocephalus phragmitis 



May 3ot/i, 1895. This nest was photographed in a small patch of willow 

 scrub and tangled brambles near a reedy backwater on the river Teith, 

 Perthshire. The Sedge Warblers were very abundant all up the river, and as 

 there were few patches of suitable scrub for them to nest in, the nests were 

 fairly close together in suitable spots. In this particular patch, which 

 was perhaps twelve yards long and half that width, I examined no less than 

 nine nests, and there were probably more, as some of the places were so thick 

 and so overgrown with brambles that I was unable to examine them. The 

 birds kept up a continuous warbling all day, which became almost deafening 

 in the evening, as each one vied with his neighbour in singing his loudest. 

 Nearly all the nests were lined with the down from the catkins of a shrub, 

 which grew in great profusion in the marshy parts of the patch of willow scrub. 



