BY LAKES AND STREAMS. 133 



met with at a considerable distance from water, 

 especially in winter ; but swampy ground is pre- 

 ferred. Very often this pretty bird will first be 

 seen, especially in spring, clinging to some reed 

 or twig overhanging the water, and at this season 

 you may hear his monotonous song. This sounds 

 something like see-sa, see-sa, see-sa-sur-rr-r ; whilst 

 the call - note is a prolonged seese. As you 

 approach the bird takes wing, and in undulatory 

 flight hastens along the waterside to another 

 perch again to await your advance, and then 

 again to flit onwards. Again and again he flies 

 away and alights ; again you disturb him ; until 

 perchance he doubles over the water and returns 

 to his old haunt. His nest is made on the bank 

 by the waterside, sometimes in a cluster of 

 rushes on the marshy ground or beneath a shel- 

 tering bush. It is made of dry grass and bits of 

 withered aquatic herbage, lined with fine roots 

 and a little horsehair. The four or five eggs are 

 dirty white or grayish olive in ground colour, 

 streaked and spotted with purplish brown and 

 gray. These markings are nothing near so 

 tangled or profuse as those on the eggs of the 

 Yellow Bunting. During summer the Reed 

 Bunting feeds almost exclusively on insects and 

 larvae ; but in autumn and winter it becomes a 

 seed - eater ; and it is in search of this fare, 

 especially during hard weather, that we meet 

 with the bird away from the waterside, on the 

 stubbles and weedy pastures, on the highways, 

 and even in the farmyards. 



Whilst studying bird life by the waterside we 

 cannot help noticing the Swallow, the Martins, 

 and the Swift, which flock above the pool and 



