132 Darwin and Romanes dealt with. 



moss, and hair; and then, a second cuckoo's egg 

 being dropped in, it repeated the exact process — the 

 Httle nest thus becoming, really, a house of three 

 irregular stories — two containing the unborn dead, 

 and the upper a nursery of the living. I can abso- 

 lutely trust Mrs. Perrin's accuracy in report ; and 

 should be exceedingly pleased if any one who remem- 

 bers the drawing or photograph in the magazine 

 would be so good as to send me, through the pub- 

 lisher, the reference for it." 



Mr. Emerson, in his Birds of the Norfolk Broad- 

 lands, says that he has never found a cuckoo's egg in 

 a reed-warbler's nest, though he has often found it 

 in the sedge-warbler's nest. This is not at all in 

 agreement with the experience of ornithologists else- 

 where — Mr. Bidwell's list gave 62 reed-warblers, out 

 of 909 eggs — and certainly not with my own. But 

 even as regards the district with which Mr. Emerson is 

 connected, the fact leads one to ask a question : what 

 can be the reason — the reason, mark you, of such 

 nice distinction between nests of reed-warbler and 

 sedge-warbler over the district of the Broads. Have 



* The reed-warbler builds its exquisite hung-nest on sedge or 

 reed-stems, etc., generally; but sometimes it will take a fancy 

 to build in a willow or even a thorn or alder tree not far from a 

 lake or marsh, or even in a gooseberry or currant bush — not too 

 far from water. Mr. Emerson, in Birds of the Norfolk Broad- 

 lands, gives a photograph of a reed-wren's nest in situ in a 

 black-currant bush, but this seems shallower than most of its 

 nests resting on reed-stems, depth not being there so much 

 needed as in the reed-stems, which would sway more to the 

 wind. But how did the little creature come to knov,! this ? 1 

 have noticed that nests in willow and other nests are not so 

 deep either as those hung on reed-stems. 



