allen’s naturalist’s library. 
232 
the other. When the young are able to fly, however, the 
Reed- Warblers are often to be seen in the bushes, accom- 
panied by their families, and in certain places they form quite 
a little colony, the old birds feeding the young of the second 
brood, while the first brood are flying about in the neighbour- 
hood also. The species is even said to nest far away from 
water ; and Mr. Mitford says that he has known them to build 
in lilac-bushes in his garden at Hampstead. 
Nest. — Made of dry grass and roots, with a little wool or 
thistle-down. When built in the reeds, some of the latter are 
generally intertwined in the nest. 
Eggs. — From four to six in nunfl er. Ground-colour, 
greenish-white or greyish-white, and thickly mottled and 
spotted with greenish-brown, often collecting round the larger 
end of the egg, and forming a broad ring. The underlying 
spots of violet grey are so mixed with the overlying mark- 
ings as to be difficult of observation, but they are in reality 
very numerously represented. Axis, 07-075 inch; diam., 
°' 5 ~°'S 5 - 
THE marsh-warbler, acrocephat.us palustris. 
Sylvia palustris , Bechst, Orn. Taschenb., p. 186 (1802). 
Acrocephalus palustris , Dresser, B. Eur., ii., p. 573, pi. 87, 
fig. 2 (1876); Seeb., Cat. B. Brit. Mus., v., p. 101 
(1881); id. Br. B., i., p. 375 (1883); B. O. U. List Br. 
B., p. 19 (1883); Lilford, Col. Fig. Br. B., pt. iii. (1886); 
Saunders, Man., p. 93 (1889). 
Adult Male. — Similar to the Reed- Warbler, and very difficult 
to distinguish from that species, but it may be recognised by 
the olive tone of the plumage, which does not show the red- 
dish-brown colour of the rump, which is always more or less 
perceptible in the Reed- Warbler. The feet are also said to be 
pale horn-brown, instead of slaty-brown as in the last-named 
bird. Mr. Seebohm gives the measurements of the wing in the 
Reed-Warbler as from 2 '35-2 7 inches,and of the Marsh-Warbler 
from 275 to 2'8 ; but we find that in the few undoubted speci- 
mens of the latter bird in the British Museum the wing is de- 
cidedly longer in A. palustris than in A. streperus, and extends 
further down the tail; that is to say, its tip reaches to at least two- 
