AQUATIC WARBLER. 359 



delights to hide. Tangled masses of wild roses, brambles, and thorn- 

 bushes are also places where it is often found. Like all its congeners it 

 IS an active and restless bird, and is remarkably cautious and shy, con- 

 cealing itself on the least approach of danger. The Aquatic Warbler is 

 said never to hop, but on a branch or on the ground to run almost like a 

 mouse. The song is described as much like that of the Sedge- Warbler, 

 but is said to be shorter and more rapidly executed, and to want the clear 

 flute-like notes which make the song of that bird so fine. Its food is 

 insects ; and it is not known that it ever feeds upon fruit of any kind. 



Naumann says that this bird arrives in North Germany a week or two 

 before the Sedge- Warbler, and is also a somewhat earlier breeder. Fresh 

 eggs may be obtained in the last half of May. It never makes its nest 

 amongst the reeds over the water, but chooses a bunch of sedge or water- 

 plants near the bank, or a thorn or willow overgrown with rank herbage. 

 The nest is never placed on the ground, but frequently only a few inches 

 above it ; seldom more than a foot or eighteen inches. It is suspended 

 between the stalks of the plants which grow close to it, and which are 

 woven into the sides. It is described as smaller than the nest of the 

 Sedge- Warbler, somewhat roughly and carelessly finished outside, but 

 inside very deep, round, and smooth. ' The foundation is of coarse grass, 

 completed with fine round grass-stalks and roots, neatly lined with horse- 

 hair. Occasionally spiders' webs, the flowers of the cotton-grass, and 

 even feathers are used for its construction ; but the final lining is said 

 always to be horsehair. The number of eggs varies from four to five. 

 They are brownish white in ground-colour, thickly mottled and clouded 

 over the entire surface with yellowish brown, and sometimes with one or two 

 streaks of dark brown. They vary in length from '1 to '67 inch, and in 

 breadth from "52 to '5 inch. It is impossible to give any character by 

 which the eggs of this bird can be distinguished from those of the Sedge- 

 Warbler. Those that I have examined are not perhaps so yellow in tint 

 and may be a trifle smaller; but in a large series it is quite possible that 

 these diff'erences will be found to be only individual ones. 



The Aquatic Warbler has the general colour of the upper parts pale 

 tawny brown. The eye-stripe is very distinct, greyish white, and extends 

 almost to the nape ; and over each eye-stripe a broad, very dark-brown 

 streak passes to the nape, leaving a narrow pale mesial line on the crown. 

 Each feather of the rest of the upper parts, including the wing-coverts, 

 innermost secondaries, and tail, has a more or less distinct dark brown 

 centre, the quill feathers only being uniform brown. In abraded summer 

 plumage the underparts are nearly white ; but in spring the throat and 

 flanks are bufifer, and in autumn the underparts are more or less sufi'used all 

 over with buff. In many skins the lower throat and flanks are striated ; in 

 this plumage they are the 8. cariceti of Naumann. These striations occur 



