4714 THE ZooLoGist—DEcEMBER, 1875. 
Dr. Woodforde’s birds, and was also shown a pair of real reed 
warblers, which we had not seen before. 
The birds in question, Dr. Woodforde told me, had been first 
noticed by a Taunton birdcatcher, who told him that he had been 
struck by their being in a place distant from water, and in which he 
had not expected to find reed warblers, which bird he knew well. 
Dr. Woodforde accordingly obtained the four birds, the nest, and 
(I think) three eggs, but unfortunately had only one of them 
remaining. 
On comparing these birds with the skins sent to me by Mr. 
Saunders, there was no difficulty in identifying them as A. palustris, 
and there was equally little difficulty in identifying two others, 
which Dr. Woodforde then showed me, as A. streperus; these 
latter two birds we had not seen on our first visit, or probably the 
matter would have been cleared up at once. 
The nest, which was not so deep as that of the reed warbler 
usually is, was not entirely supported (as is usually the case with 
that of the reed warbler), by being tied on to the reeds at the sides, 
the bottom not resting on anything (see the vignette in Yarrell), 
but was partly supported at the bottom, and only tied on to one 
twig—lI think a bramble. 
The egg agreed very nearly with one of A. palustris sent to me 
by Mr. Saunders, both of which are white, or very nearly so, with 
dark purple and green spots; they were rather lesser-whitethroat- 
looking eggs—not at all agreeing with the ordinary eggs of the 
reed warbler: one of the eggs, however, of A. palustris approaches 
much nearer to the reed warbler’s eggs. Besides the general 
colour of the exterior of the eggs, there appears to me (on com- 
paring these two with some real reed warbler’s eggs in my collection) 
one material difference—the interior of the reed warbler’s eggs is 
decidedly white, while that of the marsh warbler has a greenish 
tinge, and that even though the ground of the outer part is, as 
I have said, nearly or quite white. I could not examine the egg 
in the case with Dr. Woodforde’s birds so as to see the colour of 
the inside, as it was fastened in the case. 
Subsequently, on looking through the birds in the Museum at 
Taunton, I found one more example of A. palustris, which had 
been lately deposited there by Mr. Sanford, at whose place (Mine- 
head, near Wellington) it had been killed. 
As these two birds (the reed and the marsh warbler) so closely 
