REED- WARBLER. 371 



sufficiently applicable. By no English writer have its habits 

 been better described than by Mr. Stevenson in his ' Birds 

 of Norfolk,' and probably in no part of England is it more 

 plentiful than in the district of the Broads, of which he has 

 given so pleasing a picture. It is an incessant songster, 

 heard at short intervals throughout the day, except in windy 

 weather, but most lavish of its music in the twilight hours 

 of a midsummer's night. Its varied notes, loud and hur- 

 riedly delivered, some of them mocking those of other birds, 

 but others peculiarly its own, form a melody far more har- 

 monious than the Sedge- Warbler's, being less interrupted 

 by the harsh twittering which mars the song of that species, 

 though there is undoubtedly a considerable likeness between 

 the vocal performance of each. Sweet, well known for his 

 skill and success in keeping the soft-billed birds in confine- 

 ment, possessed a Reed- Warbler which sung occasionally 

 throughout the winter. The food of this species consists of 

 worms, fresh-water mollusks and various insects, including, 

 according to Mr. Jenyns,, the smaller species of dragon-flies. 

 The nest of this bird is very beautifully constructed and 

 sustained. That from which the vignette was drawn, was 

 supported between four reed stems, and was taken from a 

 reed-bed on the Thames, the surface soil of which was 

 covered by water every tide. The nest is made of the seed- 

 branches of the reeds and very long grass, mixed with a 

 little wool, and wound horizontally round and round, so as 

 to include in the substance the upright reeds or twigs, when 

 built, as not unfrequently is the case, in a bush. It 

 measures some five inches in depth outside, three inches 

 across the top, and often three inches in depth inside ; the 

 lining is formed of very fine grass and long hairs. The nest 

 is so deep that the eggs do not roll out when the supporting 

 reeds are waved by the wind ; and Montagu and others have 

 observed the bird sitting on her nest when every gust forced 

 it almost to the surface of the water. The eggs, four or five 

 in number, are of a greenish-white, sometimes very pale, 

 clouded, blotched, spotted or freckled with dark olive and 

 occasionally ash-colour, the markings being usually con- 



