240 



LLOYD S NATURAL HISTORY. 



Central and Southern Europe, wherever its peculiar kind of 

 habitat still exists, but in Holland, where the bird was once 

 common, the same causes of its restriction have been at work, 

 and, owing to the extensive drainage of recent years, it 

 become much rarer. 



It inhabits the Camargue in Southern France, is found again 

 in Andalucia in Spain, in Tuscany and Venetia in Italy, in 

 Austrian Galicia, and from Poland through Central and 

 Southern Russia, east to the Delta of the Volga, and occurring 

 also in Transcaspia and Turkestan, whence the specimens are 

 somewhat paler in colour. In Palestine it has been once 

 noticed by Canon Tristram, but in the Egyptian Delta is not 

 rare, and it breeds in the marshes of Algeria and Morocco, 

 and, according to Canon Tristram, in the oases of the Sahara, 

 as far south as 32 N. lat. 



Habits. Savi's Warbler is said to be less shy than the other 

 species of Reed-Warbler, and does not sing so much at night 

 as the latter. Its song, which is a monotonous whirr, is to be 

 heard all day when the weather is fine, but the bird becomes 

 silent if the weather is boisterous or the nights are cold. It 

 frequents large reed-beds, and diligently climbs up reed after 

 reed, but is only to be seen when it perches on the top of one 

 of them to run off its monotonous reel, as Mr. Seebohm puts 

 it. The call-note is a short Krr. From its note it used to be 

 called the "Red Craking Reed- Wren" or "Reel-bird" by the fen- 

 men, just as the Grasshopper Warbler is called the " Reeler " 

 at the present day. From the account of the bird's habits 

 published by Count Casimir Wodzicki we learn that both sexes I 

 take part in the construction of the nest, and the male takes j 

 part in the duties of incubation. It is a decidedly quarrel- 

 some bird. 



Nest. As with other Reed-Warblers, the nest is carefull] 

 concealed. It is not, however, suspended on reeds, but is 

 placed on the tangled blades, or in a tuft of spiky rush, and 

 according to Count Wodzicki, resembles that of a miniature 

 Crake. It is a compound of flat leaves of grass, generally "sweet 

 grass," with narrower leaves for the lining. The English nest 

 in the British Museum is entirely composed of dead rushes and 



