NOTES AND QUERIES. 451 
described, although the coloured plate of the latter is very poor. My friend 
informed me that he had found two nests, the one in question with fresh 
eggs on June Sth, and another a little later with eggs just hatching. I went 
with him to see this latter nest, hoping that it might still contain young, 
and that I might get a glimpse of the parent birds, but found it quite 
empty. It was much more substantially built than the first nest, and more 
neatly finished, so I do not think it could have been a second nest of the 
same pair. Unfortunately I could not get the exact date of its discovery. 
It was very clean, and not at all damaged, and I am therefore rather doubtful 
whether the young brood had remained in the nest until fully fledged, or 
whether they had been destroyed by Shrikes, which are very plentiful in 
that district. Both nests were built amongst the rank herbage of tall 
grasses, nettles, and meadow-sweet, with here and there a bramble, which 
almost choked up a ditch alongside the hedgerow of an arable field. The 
ditch was about two feet deep, and the nests were placed at about ground- 
level. The first nest was loosely woven of round grass-stalks with one or 
two flat grass-blades, lined with a few fine roots and a very few black horse- 
hairs. Diameter of cup, about 2-2 inches x 1:5 inches in depth. Eggs, 
greenish white ground-colour, with pale purple-grey and olive-brown 
markings; darker spots in middle of many of the markings and scattered 
about over the surface of the egg generally ; average measurements, 
‘73 X ‘53 inches. The second nest was compactly woven of round grass- 
stalks, lined with a large quantity of fine roots and a few black horse-hairs. 
Diameter of cup about 2°25 inches x 1-6 inches in depth. Last summer 
Tasked my friend to look out for any similar nests, but not on any account 
to disturb them. 1 was in Somersetshire in July last, and he informed me 
that he had found two nests in precisely the same spots as the previous year. 
The first one contained one egg, but unfortunately the birds forsook it, and 
this nest was afterwards destroyed. The lining of the second one was 
hardly completed, and he fenced this about with hurdles to protect it from 
the sheep, but the birds never finished it, and forsook it without laying. 
This was in the month of May, but about the beginning of June, when 
cutting a piece of clover, the mowing-machine on its first round cut away 
the supporting-stalks of a third nest, leaving them and the nest suspended 
by the adjacent herbage on the edge of the ditch. It contained five fresh 
eggs quite uninjured. This nest was beautifully woven in between stalks 
of nettle and hemlock, a good deal of cobweb, or web of some kind of 
caterpillar, being used in binding it to the stalks. This is the nearest 
resemblance to a Reed Warbler’s nest that I have seen, and is much deeper 
on the outside than either of the two previously found nests. ‘The eggs 
are similar in their markings to those of 1888, but the ground colour is a 
much clearer white, with a faint tinge of blue in it; average measurements, 
“74 x ‘53 inches. I have received a set of Marsh Warbler’s eggs from 
