BIRDS SEEN IN SWITZERLAND. M 



with reeds ; and patches of bramble and a thorny, scrubby shrub 

 with narrow, hoary leaves. From a broad, shallow, dry ditch, 

 with some growth of bushes, reeds, and meadow-sweet, I flushed 

 a Marsh Warbler which flitted away with a low grating cry. The 

 nest was built in, and entirely supported by, the stems of the 

 meadow-sweet, about two feet from the ground. It was composed 

 entirely of rather fine dead grass-stems with a lining of finer 

 grasses, and a few long hairs, and contained five fresh eggs. 

 Very remarkable eggs, quite distinct from those of the Eeed 

 Warbler; ground-colour white, marbled with grey, lilac-grey, 

 and light greenish brown. We afterwards found another pair, 

 accompanied by their young brood on the wing ; these haunted 

 a clump of bushes, and gave us close views of them. On the 

 19th June F. observed a bird, in good song, about a narrow 

 belt of thick alders between the Aare and some gardens at 

 Meiringen. On the 22nd we visited the spot again, and saw the 

 bird, which had probably hatched its young, as it sang very little. 

 Several times it crossed the broad river to visit some allotment 

 gardens on the other side, and perched once or twice on the top of 

 tall French bean-sticks. It imitated the Sedge Warbler's chatter 

 (a little) and notes of Black Redstart and Tree Pipit. At the 

 east end of the Alpnach arm of the Lake of Lucerne, between 

 Stansstad and Stanz, is a broad tract of flat ground. Near the 

 lake it is simply a drained bog ; at the time of our visit only wet 

 in places, but still much overgrown with reeds, and the straight 

 roads through it quaked as a cart rumbled along. Here we found 

 the Marsh Warbler pretty common, and had several good views of 

 the birds, besides listening to the song of three individuals, on 

 the blazing hot morning we spent there. The nest of one pair 

 we watched in a stretch of tall reeds and meadow-sweet (the 

 ground dry underfoot) was built in the stalks of the latter plant, 

 and formed of dead grass-stems, with a lining of finer grasses 

 and a few hairs. It contained only two eggs, rather longer than 

 those in the Interlaken nest, with a white ground, marked only 

 at the big end, and that not very much. Unfortunately, as I was 

 handling one of the eggs, one of the horse-flies, which were very 

 troublesome, bit me, and I broke it. It seems likely that two 

 broods are reared in the season, as this nest was found on the 

 28th June. The two nests examined were not so deep as that of 

 the Reed Warbler; the sides were fairly thick, but the nest was 



