EIVEE-WARBLEES. ^^ 



performer of this music which I heard so constantly in the 

 hedges, for the bird is very restless and very modest. When 

 I caught sight of him, he would not stop to be examined closely. 

 One day however he was kind enough to alight for a moment 

 in a poplar close by me, and as I watched him in the loose- 

 leaved branches, he poured out the song, and duly got the 

 credit for it. 



We are now close to our old winter-station on the bridge 

 over the mill-stream, stnd leaning over it once more on the 

 tipper side, we shall hear, if not see, both the remaining species 

 of the warblers that Oxford has to show us. They are the 

 only species of Eiver-warblers that are known to visit England 

 regularly every year; these two, the Sedge-warbler and the 

 B,eed-warbler, never fail, and the Sedge-warbler comes in very 

 large numbers, but only a few specimens of other Eiver-warblers 

 have been found out in their venturesomeness. Still, every young 

 bird-hunter should acquaint himself with the characteristics 

 of the rarer visitors, in order to qualify himself for helping 

 to throw light on what is still rather a dark corner of English 

 ornithology. These same species which we so seldom see are 

 swarming in the flat lands of Holland, close by us, and why 

 should they not come over to the island which birds seem to 

 love so dearly 1 



But there is no doubt that birds have ways, and reasons for 

 them, which man is very unlikely ever to be able to understand. 

 Why, aa Mr. Harting asks,' should the Eeed-warbler be so much 

 less ' generally distributed ' than the Sedge- warbler ? That it 



^ Our Summer Migrants, p. 82. 



