SYLVIAD^. 99 



is, the bottom does not touch the ground or rest 

 upon a branch. It must be generally well concealed, 

 as I have never been able to find one, although the 

 birds are numerous in our brook ; but then I am a 

 very bad bird-nester. 



The appearance of the Sedge Warbler is as 

 follows: The beak is brown; head olive-brown, 

 streaked with dusky ; a streak of dull dirty white 

 extends from the base of the upper mandible over 

 the eye ; cheeks, sides and back of the neck olive- 

 brown ; back and scapulars the same, the centre of 

 each feather being dusky; rump and tail-coverts 

 olive-brown, with a tinge of rufous ; throat, breast 

 and belly white in the centre, with a tinge of yellow 

 on the sides (the breast of one of my specimens, a 

 young bird of the year, is spotted with dusky); quills, 

 primaries and secondaries dusky; tertials dusky, 

 edged with light brown (in the young birds the pri- 

 maries and secondaries are also edged with brown) ; 

 tail dusky; legs, toes and claws pale brown. 



The egg is about the same size as that of the last 

 species ; of a pale olive-brown ground, speckled with 

 a darker shade. 



REED WARBLER, Salicaria arundinacea. I have 

 never seen a specimen of the Eeed Warbler in these 

 parts, but I am told that it is not uncommon in the 

 neighbourhood of Bridgwater, and that it builds 

 there amongst the reeds growing in some of the 

 nonds made near the railway by digging out earth 



