OF SELBORNE. 121 



I describe thus : " It is a size less than the grasshop- 

 per lark ; the head, back, and coverts of the wings, of a 

 dusky brown, without those dark spots of the grasshop- 

 per lark ; over each eye is a milkwhite stroke ; the chin 

 and throat are white, and the under parts of a yellowish 

 white ; the rump is tawny, and the feathers of the tail 

 sharp pointed; the bill is dusky and sharp, and the 

 legs are dusky; the hinder claw long and crooked." 

 The person that shot it says that it sung so like a reed 

 sparrow 5 that he took it for one; and that "it sings all 

 night: but this account merits farther inquiry. For 

 my part, I suspect it is a second sort of Locustella, 

 hinted at by Dr.-Derham in Ray's Letters : see p. 108. 

 He also procured me a grasshopper lark. 



5 This is an error which runs through most of our books of ornithology. 

 The reed bunting, commonly called the reed sparrow, has no song. Like 

 its congeners, in this country, it has only a monotonous cry. The bird 

 above mentioned, Snlicaria Phragmitis, or sedge warbler, is perpetually 

 singing by night, if disturbed, as well as by day, and the reed bunting 

 has often got the credit of its song. The sedge warbler is very abundant 

 at Spofforth, but I have never discovered the reed warbler, its near con- 

 gener, here. Bewick has confounded these two species, and has given a 

 plate and description of the sedge warbler, under the name of the reed 

 warbler, which last has not been observed north of the Trent. The reed 

 warbler is of a uniform reddish brown with a little olive cast on the 

 upper parts, and whitish on the belly ; the sedge warbler has a light 

 stripe over the eye, and the middle of each feather, on the upper parts, 

 dashed with very dark brown. I have found its nest on the ground in a 

 tuft of rushes, in long grasses and herbs, being made fast to their stalks, 

 in a dead hedge, but most frequently in thorn fences, and low bushes, 

 and willows, often in the currant bushes in gardens near a wet ditch or 

 stream. The reed wren builds in general higher, sometimes in a poplar 

 tree, often in the tall lilacs in the Regent's Park : our books mostly state 

 willows, and that it builds in the reeds, but it often prefers a tall bush 

 or a small tree if there be one in the neighbourhood. Its bill is stronger 

 than that of the sedge warbler, and it seems to be less patient of cold. 

 Its nest is deeper. The song of individuals of the two species is very 

 similar, and cannot easily be distinguished. Mr. White calls the sedge 

 warbler a delicate polyglott; and speaks of its song as very superior to 

 that of the whitethroat, in which I can by no means agree with him. Its 

 notes are very hurried, some parts of its song are good, but others singu- 

 larly harsh and disagreeable. They are greedy birds, and in confinement 

 are apt to die from excessive fat; becoming so unwieldy as to hurt and 

 bruise themselves by tumbling down. W. H. 



