SEDGE WARBLER. 291 
five or six in number, eight lines long by six lines in 
breadth, of a pale yellowish brown colour, slightly mottled, 
and sometimes streaked with darker brown. These, ac- 
cording to Mr. Jenyns, are hatched towards the end of 
May or the beginning of June. 
The Sedge Warbler, as before observed, is neither so 
local nor so limited in numbers as the species which here 
precedes it, or those which follow it. 
The marshy banks of the Thames, on either side of the 
river where beds of willows or reeds abound, are well 
stocked with this bird; although from the wet and 
muddy nature of the ground they are not very easy to 
get at. In the southern and western counties it occurs 
in Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, Cornwall, and in 
Wales; and from Mr. Wm. Thompson of Belfast, I learn 
that it is a regular summer visitor to the North of Ireland. 
It occurs also in the marshes of Essex, in Suffolk, Norfolk, 
Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Lancashire, 
and was traced by Mr. Selby in Sutherlandshire to the 
northern extremity of the island: “it was found pretty 
generally distributed along the margins of the lochs, parti- 
cularly where low birchen coppice and reedy grass abound- 
ed. The well-known babbling notes of this wakeful little 
bird proclaimed its presence in many unexpected situ- 
ations.” Mr. Hewitson saw it in Norway; M. Nilsson 
records it as a summer visitor to Sweden; and Pennant, in 
his Arctic Zoology, says it frequents Russia and Siberia 
even to the Arctic Circle. It inhabits all the marshes and 
sides of rivers in Holland ; is a common bird in Germany, 
France, Provence, and Italy, which last country it leaves 
early in October and returns in April. It is found in 
Corfu, Sicily, Malta, and Crete. Mr. Strickland saw 
this species at Smyrna in December. 
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