54 Animal Life 
a rule in the last days of June, and I have known young only just hatched as late 
as July 10th. In Switzerland, where it is common on the marshy margins of lakes, 
it is almost as late in its breeding as in England; the plants in which the nest is 
placed are not sufficiently grown before June has begun, and eggs may be found up 
to the end of the month. 
Next, if I am asked where this bird should be looked for, I should answer 
without hesitation, im an osier-bed. In the fenny country or im the marshes of the 
Parret it may no doubt be found, as I have found it abroad, in more open places; 
but im the Inghly cultivated parts of central and southern England, I doubt if it is 
worth while to search for 1t except among osiers. Some forty or fifty years ago, when 
landlords and farmers were doing 
well, it was found that osiers were 
a paying crop and numbers of 
beds were planted, not only by 
the sides of rivers, but in suitable 
spots in odd corners of arable 
and pasture fields; and I may 
parenthetically remark, asa point 
worth consideration, that the date 
of the discovery of the marsh 
warbler as a British bird exactly 
coincides with this activity in the 
osier trade. The two osier-beds 
in which I myself have found the 
bird were planted, one about thirty 
and the other about forty years 
ago. Then there came a time 
when competition, chiefly I be- 
heve from Egypt, brought down 
the price of English osiers and 
many of these beds ceased to be 
properly attended to, failmg to 
repay their owners for the con- 
siderable sums expended on them 
Wein every year. hey became deserted 
Waray oh and overgrown in many instances, 
Wy maa and all kinds of marsh plants 
From a Photograph supplied ay fo Lotion. flourished, and still flourish, in 
NEST OF THE MARSH WARBLER. their recesses. These deserted 
beds are what the marsh warblex 
really loves, if at least they are not too dense and tangled and overgrown with 
nettles and other rank vegetation; they then become close and unwholesome, and 
fail to provide the marsh warbler with the air and freedom that he loves. Supposing 
you are the possessor of an osier-bed which you wish so to treat as to tempt a 
marsh warbler to settle in it, do not let it overgrow itself and get rank, but at the 
same time do not cut it all down and clean out every corner of it m the winter. By 
all means cut down the taller willows, but leave the younger ones standing here and 
there in patches, so as to give the birds sufficient cover and, at the same time, sufficient 
freedom and fresh air. During the best season I ever had for studying these birds, 
when I had four nests under observation in a space of about half an acre, the osiers 
were in a state of neglect, but had not been so for too long, and there were open spaces 
