A Clever Reed-Warbler. 131 



were not in the line of the preservation, not to speak 

 of the increase of the species. 



And here indeed arises a whole set of facts of the 

 most interesting and suggestive character. 



The reed-warbler's nest has an incurved rim, and 

 is, compared with most other nests, very deep ; so 

 that, as the nest, attached to reeds or stems of sedges, 

 and other water-plants sways about much in the 

 wind, the eggs or young ones can't be thrown out. 

 I myself three years ago found in north-east Essex a 

 nest of the reed-wren from which the young ones had 

 flown, and noticed that it was very irregular looking 

 at the bottom, I put in my finger, and was surprised 

 to find it at one side very hard, and pulling off the 

 lining of moss, grass, hair, etc., nicely felted, there 

 was a cuckoo's egg lying cold, buried, in fact. The 

 wren had, for the reason given above, been unable to 

 eject the egg, and had simply built it over, putting, 

 in fact, a second bottom into the nest, and as she had 

 to do this, be it remembered with eggs of her own in 

 it, she could not make it so regular as the true bottom 

 below, which I now beheld, all smooth and neatly 

 finished. 



On mentioning this to my friend, Mrs. Perrin, her- 

 self a naturahst, and exquisite painter of our native 

 wild flowers, she told me that some time before she 

 had seen in one of the illustrated magazines (American, 

 she thought), a drawing, showing how the same in- 

 genious little bird had dealt with intruded cuckoo's 

 eggs, which it, too, had been smart enough to detect, 

 but could not turn out. The clever little creature 

 had manged to separate the cuckoo's egg from its 

 own, and put over it a layer of small leaves, and 



