CETTl’s WARBLER. 
95 
reed-stem, it is down again tlie moment it is observed. 
Its song is rather agreeable, but is heard only from 
its concealment. The poor bird seems to have a more 
than usual instinctive knowledge that reasoning man is 
its enemy. Its call of two syllables resounds continually. 
AVhen it is pursued, and it thinks the enemy has been 
led away far enough, it will turn quickly back again 
to its first place. 
It builds its nest in a bush not far from water, and 
near the ground. It is constructed of dry grass and 
half-decayed plant stems: it lines it with horse-hair 
and sometimes wfith feathers. It lays four or five eggs, 
w'hich are brown red, without spots, and as large as 
those of the Whitethroat. 
My figure of the egg is from a drawing sent me by 
iM. Moquin-Tandon, who remarks about its nidification: 
— ‘‘S. cetti, from the neighbourhood of Montpellier, 
where the bird is rather rare. This egg w^as given me 
by M. Devilliers. S. cetti makes its nest in bushes or 
large aquatic plants, at a short distance from the ground: 
the nest, skilfully made, is composed of stalks of grasses, 
and also of feathers. It contains four or five eggs of 
an uniform red brick-colour, without spots. It is 
sometimes darker than the drawing. I saw lately at a 
Paris merchant’s ten eggs of this bird: six of them like 
the drawing, three darker, and one lighter. Great 
diameter nineteen to twenty-one millemetres, small 
diameter fourteen or fifteen.” 
The male bird sent me by M. E. Verreaux has all 
the upper parts of the body a rich chesnut brown, 
darkest on the wing primaries and the tail. The throat 
is white, shading off to ash grey on the belly and to 
olive brown on the flanks and under tail coverts, the 
latter being tipped with white. The wings are short. 
