30$ THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Blackcap.* The Swallow was often mimicked, and it is worth 

 noting that late in the evening before we had seen Swallows 

 sweeping about noisily over the osier-bed, and then settling down 

 to roost there. We also occasionally heard a kind of croak 

 which suggested the voice rather of a frog than a bird. Lastly, 

 when we moved to another part of the osiers, we listened for 

 some time to what we believed to be another singer of the same 

 species, in whose strain the u-tic-tic of the Whinchat was very 

 obvious ; a sound which can be heard any day in the summer 

 from posts, rails, hedges, and telegraph-wires in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the osier-bed. In the course of our stay we 

 saw many Sedge Warblers, and heard one unmistakeable Eeed 

 Warbler ; so that all three Acrocephali are at present quartered 

 in this admirable shelter. 



On Tuesday, the 21st, I worked once more slowly through the 

 osiers ; the morning was fine, but I was unable to catch the 

 song. On emerging at the further end, it occurred to me to visit 

 a small bed of osiers, wedged in between the stream and the 

 railway, about a hundred yards distant ; and here I at once 

 heard the unmistakeable voice. What I saw here convinced me 

 that the birds had not yet built their nest, but were actually then 

 at work on it ; for two or three times they flew swiftly down into 

 the ditch by the railway, once into a clump of nettles, and returned 

 in a minute or two to the osiers. There was no trace of a nest 

 in the nettles, and I believe they were collecting materials ; and 

 if they settled in this small bed, which is higher and drier than 

 the other, we should have no great difficulty in discovering the 

 nest. In this place a pair of Sedge Warblers were feeding young ; 

 and I was interested in noticing the difference in the flight of 



* Mr. Aplin tells me by letter that on May 31st, 1889, he listened to a 

 mocking-bird of extraordinary powers, in a big hedge, with overgrown ditch, 

 near Bloxham, which he took to be a Sedge Warbler at the time. It pro- 

 duced faithfully the songs or notes of the Green Woodpecker, Starling, 

 Blackbird, Corn Bunting (very exact), Lark, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Sparrow, 

 Swallow (song), Kedstart (alarm-note), Partridge (very exact), and those 

 bubbling notes of the Nightingale which, according to our joint observations, 

 always occur in the song of the Marsh Warbler. Mr. Aplin did not see the 

 bird for more than a moment, but ascertained that it was an Acrocephalu.s ; 

 and no doubt it was A. palustris. Its imitations were "so exact as to 

 almost convince one against one's certain knowledge that one was really 

 listening to the birds themselves." 



