WARBLERS. 325 



in contact with that fluid. They are also made so 

 deep, that any agitation to which the strongest wind 

 could subject the plants to which they are attached, 

 would be unable to shake the bird or the eggs out of 

 the nest. The grasshopper warbler does not require 

 these precautions, as it always nestles in a bush or 

 other cover. The warblers are indefatigable in hunt- 

 ing for insects and larvse in those situations which, 

 on account of the reeds with which they are covered, 

 are not beaten by the swallow ; and they also capture 

 the eggs of gnats and other insects that are deposited 

 in numbers upon the surface. 



But the SYLVAN warblers are by far the most 

 favourite birds, and they are really more interesting 

 than the others, especially in regard to their music. 

 Among the tall grass and reeds of a morass, or on the 

 banks of a stagnant river, a place which has from time 

 immemorial been held to be the favourite home of pes- 

 tilence and disease, we do not expect to find any thing 

 much better than the chirp of a cricket ; and on a dull 

 piece of waste land, where furze has got completely 

 the better of all more useful vegetation, we do not look 

 for any thing very fine; and thus the hoarse, or hurried, 

 or unmusical notes of these birds are not out of place. 

 In those situations where they do build, however, 

 the aquatic warblers are great correctives of the 

 plague of flies, which, but for them, would be in- 

 tolerable in the neighbourhood of those places where 

 they frequent ; for, the dragon flies excepted, they 

 are the chief destroyers of insects, in the reedy places 

 which are neither land nor lake, and which are not so 

 generally frequented by wagtails and swallows, as the 

 more clear and open banks. 



