120 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 
side by a broad blackish streak; the breast is streaked with brown; otherwise 
she is similar to the male, though slightly smaller. The young bird is very like 
the female. 
During the summer the Reed-Bunting is essentially a marsh-loving bird, 
frequenting all moist spots in the neighbourhood of rivers, broads, canals, 
drains, or streams, wherever rushes, reeds, and the wiry grasses which delight in 
damp soil abound; in such spots its nest is almost sure to be found by careful 
searching. 
At this season the Black-bonnet is always paired, but as autumn approaches 
it wanders over the country in small flocks, often associating with Corn Buntings, 
Larks, Pipits, or Wagtails, and wandering through stubbles and rick-yards in 
search of scattered grain, or waste corners where weeds abound, the ripened seeds 
of which afford them food. 
But the summer time affords the most satisfactory opportunities for watching 
the habits of the Reed Bunting, and Norfolk is one of the best counties in which 
to study it. As Stevenson observes :—‘‘the broads in this county must be looked 
upon as the chief home of this species, where they (sic) may be met with at all 
seasons uttering their somewhat harsh and unvaried notes from the tops of the 
bushes, or whilst clinging to the reed stems; and in these localities the nests are 
built on the ground, frequently at the foot of a small bush, placed in a hollow 
amongst the soft moss that forms the foundation.” 
It was around these broads that I first met with the Reed Bunting in any 
numbers; I had seen individual examples from time to time not far from Canter- 
bury, but I never obtained the nest until 1885, when I first met with it on 
Hickling Marsh on the 13th May, and Mr. Salter sent me a second taken at 
Dounton, in Salisbury, on the 21st May. Curiously enough, although I had never 
come across it during many years in which I had birds-nested in Kent, the month 
after I had secured these two nests, my friend, Mr. William Drake, forwarded a 
third to me which he had found on the saltings at Kemsley, near Sheppy. When 
at the broads, in June, 1886, I dropped upon a nest (on the 2nd of the month) 
at Mudfleet, containing five entirely unmarked eggs, but these were so much 
incubated and so brittle that, with the greatest care, I was only able to save 
two of them. (See fig. 198./ 
All my nests were in slight depressions in mossy ground, sodden with wet 
and not always safe to walk upon, even with bare feet and trousers rolled up 
above the knees; indeed I and my companion Mr. O. Janson had to walk very 
circumspectly, part of the marsh here and there being detached and simply 
floating in a pool of deep water, so that as you put a foot down it would dip 
