ACBOGEPHALUS P ALU ST BIS. 407 



will be in serious difficulties, and will search for suitable sites in 

 hedges and ditches, and have recourse to nettles, wild parsnip, 

 or even beans, as we have seen. Here, of course, they run far 

 greater risks than in the dense vegetation of the osier-bed, 

 where I have hardly ever known a nest destroyed or even dis- 

 covered by the ploughboys who are constantly about the spot. 

 The difficulties met with by my birds during the last few years 

 lead me strongly to believe, apart from other evidence, that the 

 Marsh-Warbler is not, and cannot be, a more abundant bird than 

 we commonly think. What it really loves best, and rarely finds 

 in England except in some parts of Somersetshire and Cambridge- 

 shire, where it first attracted notice, is a large space of flat 

 alluvial ground, with convenient bits of cover, such as thick 

 bunches of tall plants, scattered here and there. 



3. The Nest and Eggs. — The nest is always two or three feet 

 from the ground, rising somewhat if the plants are growing, made 

 almost entirely of dry grass, sometimes with a very slight ad- 

 mixture of wool or moss, and lined with fine rootlets and a few 

 hairs. (In the nest in which a fresh lining was laid over the 

 Cuckoo's egg there was a conspicuous lump of white wool, which 

 was so unusual as to attract my attention, leading to the dis- 

 covery of the intruder's egg.) The nest seems a very slight 

 structure, but is in reality strongly put together ; for several 

 years I amused myself on Christmas Day by looking in the osier- 

 bed for one built there the previous summer, and in each case 

 found it entire. It is attached to two fairly strong stems of the 

 supporting plant by what I can only describe as basket-handles, 

 i. e. the dry grass is at those two points stretched considerably 

 above the proper rim of the nest ; usually two or three slenderer 

 stems of the same or another plant are taken into the material 

 of the nest, and pass through its rim. In this point it resembles 

 many nests of the Eeed-Warbler, but it is not so deep or so solid 

 as the usual Eeed- Warbler's nest, and may always be distinguished 

 by the obvious " basket-handles." A long and close acquaint- 

 ance with these nests has made it clear to me that the peculiar 

 art of this bird cannot readily adapt itself to many kinds of 

 plants. In this respect the Reed-Warbler has the advantage ; I 

 have known it build in two or three different kinds of bushes 

 where it could not get reeds. 



