86 Summer Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



rare lapses into sounds that could be called grating 

 or sibilant. 



The next thing to be done was to procure wit- 

 nesses and to find the nest; for my own evidence 

 alone would fail to convince the scientific ornitho- 

 logist. I summoned three competent witnesses in 

 the course of the next three weeks, and though our 

 united labours never revealed the nest, the conviction 

 of each observer became in each case as decided as 

 my own, and constituted a case too strong for even 

 the hardest-hearted sceptic. The first was a young 

 enthusiast from Oxford, who knew well the songs 

 of all our common Warblers. I let him listen for 

 half an hour alone, and when I joined him I found 

 him thoroughly convinced that he had never heard 

 this song before. The next was Mr. Aplin, who had 

 not been in the osiers ten minutes before he declared 

 himself fully satisfied that he was listening to the 

 bird we had studied together in the Alps. That 

 morning we heard a strange variety of imitations — 

 the Chaffinch, Thrush, Yellow Wagtail, Eedstart, Gold- 

 finch, Greenfinch, Partridge, Swallow, Skylark, Whin- 

 chat and Blackcap, were all laid under contribution 

 in the course of two or three hours; all of them 

 being birds whose song the artist could study at 

 leisure from the osier-bed. We had also the satis- 

 faction of seeing the bird well — as well as we had 

 seen him in Switzerland ; and also of finding a Eeed 



