REED-WARBLER. 871 



■was built without preliminary foundations, being not much deeper than 

 wide outside ; whilst others were intermediate in this respect between the 

 two extreme forms. In some two twigs only were interwoven with the 

 nest, whilst one had four twigs passing through its walls. 



The eggs in each nest varied very little ; but some clutches were much 

 darker and more profusely spotted than others. The ground-colour was a 

 pale greenish blue, and the spots or blotches greenish brown, more or less 

 confluent at the larger ends, the underlying spots being paler and greyer 

 than the others. Some eggs show a few streaky spots, almost black. 



A week later I went down to Brighton. About a mile from the railway- 

 station at Shoreham, across the Duke of Norfolk's suspension-bridge, is a 

 plain watered by the river Adur, which flows between the downs and the 

 beach for some distance. This plain is, as might be expected from its 

 position, somewhat swampy ; but it is a highly cultivated farming district, 

 being well drained by natural dykes which ^vind into the river, assisted by 

 a number of artificial dykes generally cut in an absolutely straight line, 

 reminding one of the Dutch system of broad open drains. In Sussex these 

 drains serve three purposes. By a system of trap-doors they allow the 

 river to take away the surplus water whenever the level of the river is 

 below that of their own, without admitting the floods from the river when 

 the contrary is the case. The second purpose they serve is that of reed- 

 beds, from which a crop is regularly gathered for use as a substitute for 

 straw. The third purpose to which they have been applied (by Nature, 

 and not by Man) is that of a most interesting summer residence and 

 breeding-place of the Reed-Warbler. 



There are very few hedges on this plain, these dykes serving, indeed, a 

 foiu'th purpose (which I had forgotten), namely of dividing field from field. 

 The absence of hedges is accompanied, as usual, by the absence of birds. 

 Occasionally we saw a few Rooks or a Peewit on the fallows. Now and 

 then a Skylark might be heard singing overhead, or a Corn-Bunting might 

 be seen on the telegraph-wires uttering its monotonous note. Once we 

 saw a Sedge- Warbler singing its harsh song amongst a swamp full of flags 

 and rushes and gay with the yellow iris, and occasionally essaying a short 

 flight in the air after the manner of a Tree-Pipit. 



The Reed -Warblers were in the dykes ; but a careless passer-by would 

 have seen nothing of them. The dykes were from four to six feet wide, with 

 steep banks, the level of the water being about two feet below the top of the 

 banks. Most of the dykes were full of reeds, the tallest of which reached 

 another two feet above the banks, so that as we walked along them we looked 

 down upon the heads of the reeds ; but not a Reed- Warbler was to be seen 

 or heard. The dykes which we visited may have been a couple of miles 

 long. Sixteen days earlier Swaysland had cleared the dyke of Reed- 

 Warblers, beating up the reeds and driving the birds into a net, returning 



2b 2 



