NOTES. 185 



exhaustion cannot correctly be said to be giving expression 

 to its superfluous energy. And the same applies to birds that 

 sing between the rounds of a protracted fight. 



But there is not much use in discussing Mr. F. J. Stubbs' 

 view until we are a little clearer as to what it means. After 

 the phrase above quoted, he adds, "and has no direct con- 

 nection with sexual matters." At the end of his letter he 

 repeats that " bird-song is not connected except indirectly with 

 sexual affairs, and that it is at all times and in all birds 

 nothing but (italics mine) the overflowing of the vitality that 

 cannot be stored or used up in any other way." What is the 

 nature of the indirect connection with sexual affairs, if song is 

 " nothing but " the expression of superfluous vitality ? 



F. B. KlRKMAN. 



MARSH-WARBLER BREEDING IN KENT AND 

 WORCESTERSHIRE. 



I have recently had brought in to me for identification a nest 

 and five eggs which undoubtedly belong to A. palustris. 

 They were taken by an entomologist and sent to my friend 

 as a peculiar clutch of Reed- Warbler's eggs. They are typical 

 and rather larger than those from the Continent ; the nest 

 is very much like the one described by me in Vol. II., p. 183, 

 of this magazine, except that it is rather deeper on the inside. 

 It was found on an old rubbish-heap, overgrown with nettles 

 and cow-parsnip, on June 22nd, near Birchington. The four 

 supports round which the nest is built consist of nettle and 

 corn, one of the nettle and two of corn are apparently of last 

 year's growth. The eggs were quite fresh. 



It may interest Mr. W. Davies (c/. p. 157) to know that 

 I have in my collection a clutch of four eggs of the Marsh- 

 Warbler with a Cuckoo's egg, taken in Worcestershire on 

 June 25th, 1904. They were sent to my correspondent as- 

 the nest and eggs of a Reed- Warbler. The nest was typical, 

 but the eggs are unusual, though they have the characteristic 

 peppered specks which are one of the principal distinguishing 

 features in the eggs of A. palustris. I believe this to be, 

 with one exception, the only British record of the Cuckoo 

 having used the nest of the Marsh- Warbler. Mr. Warde 

 Fowler records the one other in the " Zoologist" (Vol. X., 

 p. 403). Percy F. Bun yard. 



DARTFORD WARBLER FEIGNING INJURY AT THE 



NEST. 

 During the summer of 1908 I paid repeated visits to a 

 small colony of Dartf ord Warblers (Sylvia undata) , and on one 



