MARSH WARBLER. 3 



is it in Mr. Salvin's list of the "Birds of the Eastern Atlas of Africa," 

 nor in Captain Loche's "Catalogue of the Birds of Algeria;" but 

 there is no doubt it may have been confounded in the above lists 

 with Sylvia arunclinacea. 



In Europe it is found, according to Temminck, plentifully on the 

 banks of the Po and the Danube; and Degiand records its appearance 

 in the department of Nord. A male was killed in 1843, in the 

 neighbourhood of Bergnes, and subsequently every year others at the 

 same place. M. Baillon has procured it from Abbeville, and M. 

 Gerbe plentifully from the Basses Alps. It is generally distributed 

 in Germany, appearing in May, and leaving again in September. It 

 is found, not in thick reed and sedge clumps, but chiefly on the 

 banks of rivers, where the brushwood is low and mixed with reeds, 

 high grass, sedges, etc., closely grown together. 



Salvadori, "Fauna d'ltalia," writes thus of this bird: — "The slightly 

 olive-grey colour of the upper parts of this species distinguishes it 

 easily from A. arunclinacea, in which they are reddish olive very 

 pronounced. Besides in A. palustris the beak is longer and more 

 depressed, like that of S. elaeica — from which, perhaps, it may be 

 made the type of a distinct genus." 



Bonaparte, "Fauna Italica," writes: — "It is found in the plains of 

 Northern Italy, along the river Po, from spring till quite the end of 

 autumn. It does not live exclusively about the deserted marshes and 

 uncultivated plains like its congeners, or in plantations like the true 

 Sylvice, but it delights rather in cultivated and irrigated places, and 

 in fields of hempseed on the shores of the rivers. Though it flies 

 about the reeds, it never alights upon them, but upon low and thick 

 bushes, upon willows, and plants of Urticce dioica. 



"Agile and vivaceous, it is continually jumping between the boughs, 

 and flying from one bush to another. In May and June the male 

 sings day and night, in a soft voice very much like that of Sylvia 

 hypolais, and with a song sufficiently varying, during the intervals of 

 which it utters a sort of croak which reminds one of the tones of the 

 Calamoherpe. It feeds on insects, but takes more readily than other 

 birds (especially in the beginning of autumn) the berries of the elder 

 and privet. 



"It constructs its nest in the same humid places in which it ordi- 

 narily lives, in the middle of the bushes, or in elevated herbaceous 

 plants; not, however, over water, or among the reeds. It resembles 

 in form the nest of arunclinacea. On the outside it is interlaced 

 with tufts of grass and dry leaves. Internally it is lined with horse 

 hair and bents. The eggs are from four to six, a little more elongated 



