122 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



below ; feet yellowish horn-brown ; iris hazel. After the autumn moult the plumage 

 becomes more fulvous. 



The Aquatic Warbler is a bird of the swamps, haunting the sedges and 

 smaller patches of reeds in dykes, ponds, the margins of lakes or rivers : like the 

 Sedge- Warbler it is a timid skulking bird, always ready to drop out of sight into 

 the sedges at the least alarm ; like that bird also it does not confine itself strictly 

 to aquatic vegetation, but is also found amongst wild and tangled scrub and thorn. 



It is said that this bird never hops, but runs almost like a mouse ; it is 

 extremely active like all the other Reed- Warblers ; its song though somewhat like 

 that of the Sedge- Warbler is inferior in tone, length, and execution. 



The nest, according to Naumann is never situated amongst reeds over the 

 water, but is usually placed in a bunch of sedge, or some other aquatic plants 

 about a foot or less above the ground, or in dwarf thorn or willow overgrown 

 with rank herbage ; it is suspended from the stalks or twigs of the growth in 

 which it is situated, and these, as with the Sedge and Reed- Warbler's nests, are 

 interwoven with the walls. In appearance the nest much resembles that of A. 

 phragmitis, but is said to be slightly smaller ; * in its materials it doubtless varies 

 quite as much ; but the basis of the nest, as with that species usually consists of 

 dry grass and rootlets, and the inner lining is said to be invariably finished oif 

 with horsehair. 



The eggs number from four to five, and are indistinguishable from those of the 

 commoner species. 



The breeding season begins about the middle of May, and fresh eggs are 

 obtainable before the end of that month. 



Herr Gatke makes the following interesting remarks respecting the Aquatic 

 Warbler in his " Birds of Heligoland " : — " The distribution of this species 

 as a breeding bird is scarcely as yet ascertained to its full extent ; at any rate, the 

 conditions under which it makes its appearance here are not in harmony with the 

 statements made in regard to its breeding area. The nesting stations cited for this 

 species are Algiers, Italy, France, Germany — especially the west — Holland, and in 

 solitary instances in Sleswick-Holstein, and Denmark. 



From the frequent, and in one case at least, verj^ numerous appearances of 

 young birds during the autumn migration, and their complete absence in the 

 spring — I have only once obtained a bird in April — we may with safety conclude 

 that, so far as Heligoland is concerned, the species is a far Eastern one. This 

 conclusion received considerable support from the fact that, on the 13th of August 



* But, as the nest of the Sedge- Warbler varies in diameter from 3J to nearly- 5 inches, the comparison is 

 not of much value. 



