114 OUR NATIVE SONGSTEllS. 



thrown out, nor does the mother bird seem 

 alarmed when some sweeping gust rushes among 

 tliem, and bows both her home and licrself nearly 

 to the surface of the water. She knows that the 

 long strips of grass which bind the nest to the 

 reed stalk are fixed securely, and that that beauti- 

 ful plume-like reed will bend and rise again 

 unbroken by tlie wind. On some rare occasions, 

 indeed, when long-continued rains have swollen 

 the stream beyond its usual boundaries, tlie nest 

 will be submerged ; but it is generally placed with 

 so prudential a skill, as that many, like the 

 peasants of LoiTaine, judge of the height to which 

 the water will anive, by the elevation of the nests 

 of the recdlings. The mother-bird is not easily 

 alarmed, and Colonel ^lontagu saw a reed warbler 

 retaining her seat on the nest, when every gust 

 bent it almost to the sm-face of the stream. Both 

 this bird and the sedge warbler are very common 

 in Holland, where the sedgy dikes afford them a 

 good retreat. In our country the latter species is 

 more numerous than the fonner. 



The eggs of the reedling wren are greenish- 

 white, spotted with olive and brown. Happily the 

 bird is not relished as food, neither will it beai- 



