Perching Birds. 61 
nearly always in summer. It is curious that a bird which is not rare in Holland, 
Belgium, and North-eastern France in the nesting-season, should not occur more fre- 
quently within the British Islands. The species is found throughout Northern Europe, 
as far as the birch-region extends, and winters in South Africa. Although spoken of 
in many works on British Ornithology as the ‘ melodious ’ Willow-Warbler, Seebohm 
and other observers have failed to find any particularly striking melody in its song, 
which is described as partaking of imitations of the notes of other birds mixed 
together, from which the species has probably acquired the name of ‘ Mocking-bird ’ 
in Germany. The food consists principally of insects, but it feeds on a variety of 
fruit in the autumn. The nest is placed in the fork of a small tree, and is made of 
dry grass, with wool and lichen and thistle-down intermixed, and lined with finer 
roots, grass-stems and horse-hair. The eggs are from four to six in number, of a 
characteristic pinkish stone-colour, sprinkled or spotted with black dots. 
Some years ago Mr. Howard Saunders assured me of his 
THE WESTERN i i- r *- • • n , j • r? i A 
beliei that the present species occasionally nested in England, 
TREE-WARBLER. , , , r „ . . 
, ,, ,, as he had seen an egg obtained by a schoolboy at Lancing in 
(Hypolais polyglottn.) J J ° 
Sussex, which could only have been that of H . polyglottn. The 
bird also had been obtained, but the specimen was spoilt in the skinning. More 
recently an individual has been actually procured, as recorded by Mr. N. F. Ticehurst. 
It was shot near Burwash, in Sussex, on the 30th of April. The species probably 
occurs more often than has been supposed. H. polyglottn is very similar to 
H. icterina, but is smaller, and has a large bastard primary, and the second quill 
is shorter than the fifth. It inhabits Western 
Europe, being found in Spain and Portugal and 
Central France, and is also found in Algeria and 
Tunis, passing to Senegambia in winter. 
This species belongs to the 
group of Sedge and Reed- 
AQUATIC WARBLER. . ,. , . . .... 
Warblers, which have the hill ImKB 
(Acrocephalus . |\ 
, somewhat flattened, with wcll- 
aquaticus.) ’ 
developed rictal bristles. The ^ 
bastard primary is very small and does not reach to 
the ends of the primary-coverts, though it is slightly 
longer in birds of one year. 
The Aquatic Warbler is a small species which 
breeds in Central Europe, including Italy, Sicily 
and Sardinia, and extends eastwards to the Ural //■ 
mountains and Southern Russia, wintering in 
Northern Africa. It has occurred only three times 111 
England, as far as has been recorded hitherto, once 
in Leicestershire, once in Sussex, and once in Kent, The Aquatic Warbler. 
