34 Order I 



usual feather lining and has five or six eggs thickly spotted 

 with purplish black, the spots in the Chiffchaff being 

 also purplish though sparse, and in the Willow Wren red. 

 The last-named does not coat its nest with dry leaves, 

 as the others constantly do. These three birds are 

 regularly seen foraging over the green leaves on the 

 higher branches of trees for flies, aphides, and the like, 

 a habit which has given them the name of Phylloscopus 

 or " leaf -investigator " ; the Chiff chaff is the earliest to 

 arrive, the Wood Wren the latest. 



We now come to another small group of three 

 migratory Warblers, which visit us between the latter 

 part of April and September ; their general coloration 

 is reddish brown with buffish white under parts, and 

 they have a conspicuously rounded tail. Careful atten- 

 tion is necessary on the part of a beginner to distinguish 

 them by their hurried babbling notes, apart from diffi- 

 culties with regard to the plumage. All are aquatic, 

 but the Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus streperus) is seldom 

 found except in beds of reeds (Phragmitis vulgar is) 

 and does not range north of Yorkshire, or to Ireland : 

 abroad it occurs from south Sweden and south-western 

 Siberia down to the Mediterranean, north-west Africa, 

 and Baluchistan. The Marsh Warbler (A. palustris) 

 has a slightly more southern foreign range, and is at 

 present only recorded as breeding with us in Somerset, 

 Gloucester, Worcester, Oxford, Wilts, Hants, Sussex, 

 Kent, Surrey, Bucks, Cambs, and Norfolk; it usually 

 haunts osier holts and damp copses, and eschews reed- 

 beds. The Sedge Warbler (A. schcenobcenus) breeds 

 throughout Britain in suitable places, but always near 

 water, though a small ditch may suffice, whereas the 

 last-named species has been known to nest in cornfields. 



