THE SONG AND NOTES OF BIRDS. 99 



the latest singers are birds whose first nests have 

 been destroyed and their nuptial season abnormally 

 prolonged. As a third instance, I will select the 

 Reed Warbler. This little bird reaches its summer 

 haunts in the British Islands towards the end of 

 April or in the beginning of May; and here again 

 the males are the earliest travellers, preceding the 

 females by a few days. Not a sign of song is heard 

 until the hens do arrive, and then the haunts of 

 this Warbler resound with music. In no species, 

 perhaps, is sexual jealousy more readily expressed 

 in song than in the Reed Warbler. The sight of a 

 rival, or the intrusion of one cock in the particular 

 haunt of another, is the signal for the commence- 

 ment of a defiant song, and this fact is most 

 evident during the pairing and laying season. 

 Indeed the male often resents human intrusion 

 in a similar manner, commencing to sing the 

 moment his reedy home is invaded by man. All 

 through the love season the Reed Warbler sings 

 most persistently, but the song is not very long 

 continued, only one brood is reared, and the 

 migration south is an early one. I am loth also 

 to pass over the Willow Wren without a few 

 words. Here again the sexes travel by themselves, 

 and the males arrive the first. But not a song 



