EXTENDED BANGE OF THE MARSH-WARBLER. 447 



The position of the nest seemed to confirm that view. The 

 eggs, as stated, were taken on June 7th, and a Reed-Warbler's 

 nest with four eggs was observed on the same date. The 

 Marsh-Warbler's nest only contained two eggs when taken. I 

 was not at all satisfied that the eggs were those of the Reed- 

 Warbler, so I made one or two visits to the reed-bed in the 

 hope of seeing the birds and hearing the song ; but I was not 

 successful in doing either, and for a few days I heard nothing 

 further. 



On June 15th I was much surprised at being shown four more 

 eggs taken from a nest in the same reed-bed. These eggs were 

 in every particular similar to the two previous ones. I now 

 determined to go carefully into the matter, and was enabled to 

 examine the nest (it had in this instance fortunately not been 

 destroyed) and to obtain more details of construction and 

 situation. 



It was built in the centre of the reed-bed, by the side of a 

 small stream flowing through the bed, and ivas suspended about 

 four feet above the ground, to four or five reeds, exactly like a Reed- 

 Sparrow's nest. 



Almost all authorities agree in stating that the nest of 

 A. palustris is not suspended among the reeds, but placed "in the 

 herbage near the water " (R. Bowdler Sharpe, ' Lloyd's Natural 

 History of British Birds,' vol. i. p. 232), and " often placed at 

 some little distance from the water in low bushes overgrown with 

 reeds, or in nettles and other water-plants." 



In order that no mistake should be made, I forwarded nest 

 and eggs to South Kensington Museum, to Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, 

 on July 25th, 1907, and he forthwith pronounced them to be 

 those of the Marsh-Warbler. 



I have made a very careful and critical examination of the 

 nest, and find it constructed as follows : — The outside is com- 

 posed of fine dry grass-stalks and grass-leaves, narrow strips of 

 thin bleached seaweed, a few dried flower-heads of reed-grass, 

 dead stems and flower-heads of an umbelliferous plant, an odd 

 spider's cocoon or two, and a greenish substance which I at first 

 took to be moss, but upon examination with a lens I found to be 

 a species of fine green algse, whether seaweed or freshwater 

 weed I am unable to say, probably the former. Into the rim of 



