416 



REED SPARROW. 



mores dusky, edged with tawny red ; the tail is black ; the two middle 

 feathers deeply bordered with rufous, the two exterior on each side 

 marked obliquely with white towards the end ; the shafts and tips black. 



The female is rather less ; the head is rufous-brown, streaked with 

 dusky ; from each side of the under mandible a dusky line passes under 

 the neck, where it joins and forms a bed of that colour ; behind the 

 eye a light coloured stroke ; the breast is streaked with reddish-brown ; 

 the rump plain olive-brown ; it has no white ring- round the head, as 

 in the male. 



The young male birds do not assume their full black head till the 

 ensuing- spring- ; nor is the white ring so conspicuous. 



It is somewhat extraordinary that the manners and habits of so 

 common a bird should remain so long- in obscurity ; even modern 

 authors tell us it is a song- bird, that it sings after sunset ; and describe 

 its nest to be suspended over the water, fastened between three or four 

 reeds. There can be no doubt, however, that the nest, as well as the 

 song of the sedge bird, have been taken and confounded for those of the 

 Reed Sparrow ; for as they both frequent the same places in the breeding 

 season, that elegant little warbler is pouring forth its varied notes con- 

 cealed in the thickest part of a bush, while this is conspicuously perched 

 above, whose tune is not deserving the name of song, consisting only 

 of two notes, the first repeated three or four times, the last single and 

 more sharp. This inharmonious tune it continues to deliver with 

 small intervals from the same spray, for a great while together, when 

 the female is sitting. 



*This account of the song agrees precisely with my own observation 

 of thousands of these birds, which I have heard sing in their native 

 haunts ; but Syme says he knows its song to be very superior to that 

 of any other British species of bunting, exclusive of the snow flake, 

 which he never heard. Bolton also says, the cock sings pleasantly, 

 his notes being much finer and more pleasing than those of any other 

 bird of the same family. * 



The nest is most commonly placed on the ground near water ; some- 

 times it builds in a bush some distance from the ground ; at other 

 times in high grass, reeds, sedge, or the like, and even in furze at a 

 considerable distance from any water ; in all these situations we have 

 met with it, but never fastened or suspended, as authors have related. 

 * These have evidently mistaken for this, the nest of the sedge bird 

 (Curruca salicaria, Fleming.) Syme says, it is generally placed 

 amongst clumps or bunches of long grass, willow roots, or tufts of 

 reeds or rushes. But though I have met with a very considerable 



