SEDGE WARBLER 
53 
ground, and sometimes actually touching it. The 
nest is a particularly compact and firm one, with a 
broad rim and a small deep cup, and is built of the 
slender stems and mosses which are naturally found 
in such a situation ; it is often lined with the 
cottony catkins of poplars and willows. When 
there is little cover by a stream the nest may 
sometimes be found in an overgrown hedge on the 
slope above, perhaps a couple of fields away, but 
rarely further than this from the water. Five is 
the usual number of the eggs, six not uncommon ; 
they are generally easy to recognise, being thickly 
mottled all over with fine, flaky markings of 
reddish or yellowish-brown, on a paler or biscuit- 
coloured ground. Very often they have the addi- 
tion of a bold dark scribbling or two, after the 
fashion of the Yellow-hammer's egg. Especially 
in cold, wet years the Sedge Warbler is one of the 
birds which are particularly liable to lay eggs with 
imperfect markings ; in this case the mottlings 
may be much paler, or almost absent, so that the 
egg is at first sight difficult to identify, and may 
be mistaken for a Whitethroat's. Though its song 
is far inferior to the Nightingale's in everything 
but fluency, it gives almost as much pleasure when 
heard in the hush of some dark July night, at a 
time when most song-birds are silent even by day, 
and summer is already waning. 
