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One of the first nests ever taken, placed in the British Museum by Mr. Bond, has been 

 figured by Professor Newton, who adds that it has been examined by Mr. Carruthers, who states 

 that, except a single leaf of Cladium, the whole fabric consists of Glyceric/, aquatica ; and two 

 nests obtained by Mr. Baker in Holland, and submitted to Professor C. C. Babington, were 

 pronounced by him to be built of the blades of Glyceric/ fluitans or G. flicata. 



The eggs of this Warbler, usually from four to five or even six in number, are french white 

 closely dotted with minute underlying bluish grey shell-markings and fine brownish surface-dots, 

 which in most of the specimens in my collection are generally distributed over the surface of the 

 shell ; but in two specimens collected by Colonel Irby in Spain there is, besides the usual 

 markings, a wreath of dark reddish brown dots, almost confluent, round the larger end. They 

 bear some resemblance to the eggs of the Grasshopper Warbler, but are, as a rule, larger and 

 more distinctly spotted with darker dots. In size eggs in my collection from Holland and Spain 

 vary from f^ by -f § inch to f^ by f§ inch. Colonel Irby has lent me several nests for examina- 

 tion, all of which, like those above described, are constructed entirely of the blades of water- 

 plants. This gentleman, in a most useful work on the ornithology of Spain, which will ere long 

 be published, gives some notes on its nidification, which I transcribe as follows : — " 1 only found 

 it in one locality in Andalucia, where once (in winter), when Snipe-shooting, I noticed some old 

 nests in the sedges, which apparently belonged to this species, and made up my mind to try the 

 next spring for them. However, for two years I was unable to do so; but in 1874 I went to 

 this place in May with two friends, Mr. Stark being one, and we succeeded in finding thirteen 

 nests, nine of which fell to my share. The first nest was found by Mr. Denison, on the 4th May, 

 and contained four fresh eggs ; the others as follows : — on the Gth, one nest with four fresh 

 eggs ; on the 7th, three nests — one empty (deserted), two with four eggs each, one lot fresh, the 

 other hard sat-on ; on the 8th, one nest procured with three eggs slightly sat-on, and one nest 

 with five fresh eggs ; on the 9th, two nests with four eggs each, all hard sat-on, and one nest 

 with three young fully fledged; on the 11th, one nest with five fresh eggs; and on the 13th, one 

 nest with two fresh eggs. By this it will be seen that the time of their breeding is rather 

 variable 



" The precise time of their arrival I could not ascertain ; but it is after the 6th of March ; 

 and they are all gone by September. The nests, sometimes very near to one another, are very 

 difficult to find, and were, without exception, built in places where the mud and water varied in 

 depth from two or three inches to perhaps two feet. All but one were in sedges, so well con- 

 cealed as only to be found by accident. I spent sometimes the whole day in these marshes, 

 looking in vain, with my gun in one hand and a sickle in the other, which I used to open the 

 sedges with, as it cut one's fingers severely to try and move them with the hand. What with 

 the hot sun and the stink of the mud, I used to despair utterly, after hours of fruitless search, 

 but generally found a nest in the evening. The whole marsh was trodden down by us as if a 

 herd of cattle had been in it; but perhaps the next day, going over the same ground, one would 

 find a nest in a bunch of sedges which had been passed by within a yard. The nests were all 

 alike, loosely and clumsily built, solely constructed of dead sedge, often placed so close to the 

 water that the base was wet; they were always in the open marsh, none, that I saw, under 

 bushes or in tall rushes or reeds. 



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