46 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
English name is the Water Warblers, though the 
Latin family name draws attention to the slender 
and pointed shape of their heads. The Reed 
Warbler is a rather local bird, for it requires not 
only abundance of water, but a particular sort of 
reed to nest in, and this reed is not to be found 
by every likely-looking stream. It is the tall 
slender species, with a round, cane-llke stem, and 
a grey, plumy reed-head, like a darker miniature 
copy of the garden pampas-grass. Where beds 
of this reed are common, one may be fairly sure 
of finding the Reed Warbler, often in strong 
colonies ; but it is not, as a rule, much use to 
look for him elsewhere, though in parts of the 
Thames X^alley, and perhaps in other such locali- 
ties, the abundance of all his other requisites, and 
the comparative scarcity of his particular reed, 
has led him to nest occasionally in willows and 
other stream -side bushes, as well as in lilac-trees 
in gardens. This is a late bird to arrive, and it 
usually waits till nearly the end of May before 
nesting, for the sheltering vegetation of summ^er 
comes more slowly by the sides of the streams and 
pools than it does in the woods and hedgerows. 
The nest is one of the most ingenious and remark- 
able built by any British bird. It is slung above 
the water in the thick of the reeds, between three 
or four of their stems, which pass right through 
