Birds. 9837 



head, uttering their uote incessantly, endeavouring to their utmost to 

 draw his attention away. The nest of the latter is consequently rather 

 difficult to find. The nest of a pied wagtail, containing six eggs, was 

 found near here, situated in an indention in the trunk of an ivy-clad 

 tree, at a height of ten feet from the ground; and the nest was made 

 of the same materials employed in its construction when built in a 

 hole in a wall or in the ground. One egg is 9^ lines long by 7 lines 

 broad. 



Wheatear. — This handsome bird is very plentiful, frequenting the 

 flat wastes and uncultivated lands. They build here in the holes 

 between dry sods or in deserted rabbit-burrows. The young birds of 

 the year are very plentiful on the marshes in August, and may be seen 

 in all directions, perched on some stone or clod, bowing and cocking 

 their tails in their quaint manner. They leave about the second week 

 in September. I found one nest, at some height from the ground, 

 placed in a hole between the frame-work of a door-way and the sods of 

 an earth-work ; on approaching the hole the young would leave the 

 nest and hide themselves in the interstices of the sods. The eggs, 

 which are five and six in number, do not vary much in size; they are 

 9 lines long by 7 broad, and are laid about the middle of May. 



Sedge Warbler. — This is one of t!ie commonest of our warblers here, 

 frequenting the reedy ditches of the low-lands, and situations where 

 there are bushes, brambles and sedge, in the vicinity of water. They 

 resort particularly to dykes which are lined witli the wild sloe, 

 which grows in great abundance in Canvey Island and other flat lands 

 in the vicinity. They build in the sloe, in preference to any other 

 bush. In its curious little wai'ble it imitates, in quick succession, the* 

 sparrow, the lark and the swallow, but seems to have a decided pre- 

 ference to the twitter of the first-named bird : at the first and second 

 week in May they begin to build, and though the nest is generally 

 close to the water, I have found it at a distance of forty or fifty yards 

 from the edge, where there have been willows or other suitable 

 herbage. Out of about two dozen nests, found in the course of a iew 

 days, seven of them were built in almost exactly the same manner and 

 position as those of the reed warbler {Sylvia arundinacea). I noticed 

 this material diff'erence, however, in the position chosen by the two 

 species in question, viz., that, whereas the reed warbler invariably 

 builds in the reeds some distance from the edge of the water, the 

 sedge warbler resorts to those at the side, where there is always an 

 abundance of dead grass to aff^ord a little cover. Those formed in 

 this, position were among the dead reeds and tangled grass which line 



