THROUGH WILD EUROPE 187 



in this petticoat costume, and perhaps it is not so 

 out of place in a boat. On occasions it is even 

 convenient, for wading it is very easy to pull up 

 one's skirts, or trousers, shall we say ? and wade 

 deep without getting any garment wet. These men 

 were equally as intelligent as those of the previous 

 day, and knew exactly where to take me for any 

 bird I desired. 



The very first nest seen was one of the rare and 

 local Lusciniola melanopogon, built at the outside of 

 a ' clump ' of tall reeds. This nest was extremely 

 long and compressed between the close reed-stalks 

 about a foot from the water. The bird resembles a 

 very well-marked Sedge Warbler, but the markings 

 about the head are nearly as conspicuous and well 

 defined as those of a Whinchat. An attempt to 

 photograph this bird was a failure, from the impossi- 

 bility of hiding either myself or the camera ; but 

 during the time I was waiting I had plenty of oppor- 

 tunity to see it at close quarters, as it crept about 

 the clump of reeds in the near neighbourhood of 

 the nest, and to hear its peculiar note. 



There were plenty of Bearded Tits {Pamtrus 

 biarmicus), and my experiences with these birds in 

 the Norfolk Broads, their last stronghold in England, 

 enabled me to find several nests where one would 

 naturally expect to find them, among the rough 

 tangle of dead stuff at the bottom of the floating reed 



