THE OLD DECOY, EASTBOURNE. 89 



with reddish flecks, but these, which are supposed to be laid by birds that 

 return to the same spot every year, though a very beautiful variety, are far 

 less typical than the pale brown egg. What always strikes one about sub- 

 sequent Nightingales' nests is the ease with which they can be found. How 

 was it, we wonder, that I never got one before ? The fact is, finding them is 

 less a matter of keen sight than experience. The novice is nowhere beside 

 the old hand. But in any case it was a tiring job bending in the search, and 

 one gladly returned after it to the heap of cut sedge and wood shavings that 

 used to lie beside a tumble-down shanty on the eastern edge of the Decoy. 



It was a likely spot for a Creeper's nest, or, later on in the season, for 

 a Flycatcher's. Here one could listen to the soft note of the Cuckoos, which 

 could here have had little difficulty in discovering a suitable resting place 

 for their eggs. Ten feet up yon fir tree a Wood-Pigeon is sitting on her 

 snow-white eggs, and a Sparrowhawk's eggs have been taken quite un- 

 expectedly from a nest no farther from the ground. 



I was always on the look-out for two birds which ought to have been 

 present the Grasshopper and the Marsh- Warbler. The former one could hardly 

 have overlooked, owing to its striking note, but, though some of the tussocks 

 would have formed an admirable receptacle for its nest, I looked in vain for it 

 year after year. Breeding later, as the Marsh-Warbler does, it may well have 

 escaped observation, owing to the density of the foliage after the month of 

 May; moreover, I am unacquainted with its note, which would probably be 

 the only means of recognizing it. 



We once worked up a fine flutter of excitement over a pseudo-Orphean's 

 nest. A curious damaged egg was brought me by a boy, who had taken 

 it with two others from the Decoy. Ignorant of their value, he had been 

 induced to exchange these latter on paper a very bad bargain with a local 

 naturalist, who afterwards proclaimed them the eggs of an Orphean Warbler. 

 The man affirmed that he had found the nest there himself the preceding 

 spring, and was sure of their identity, for he had compared them with 

 undoubted specimens at a well-known London naturalist's, of which his shop 

 was a branch. Though not much impressed by the information, I was 

 sufficiently stirred by the oddness of the egg to enquire if the bird had been 

 seen, and I was all excitement a few minutes later, when I heard it described 

 as " greyish, with a black head and white in the tail." Here was indeed a 

 find, and I had visions of writing to the ' Zoologist,' and inviting down some 

 distinguished authority to study the breeding of the Orphean Warbler in England. 



The following day I was off to the Decoy with field-glasses, and, accom- 

 panied by the finder of the nest, who was fully persuaded that he was going 



