240 
allen’s naturalist’s library. 
Central and Southern Euiope, wherever its peculiar kind of 
habitat still exists, but in Holland, where the bird was once 
common, the same causes of its restriction have bee t at work, 
and, owing to the extensive drainage of recent years, it has 
become much rarer. 
It inhabits the Camargue in Southern France, is found again 
in Andalucia in Spain, in Tuscany and Venetia in Italy, in 
Austrian Galicia, and from Poland through Central and 
Southern Russia, east to the Delta of the Volga, and occurring 
also in Transcaspia and Turkestan, whence the specimens are 
somewhat paler in colour. In Palestine it has been once 
noticed by Canon Tristram, but in the Egyptian Delta is not 
rare, and it breeds in the marshes of Algeria and Morocco, 
and, according to Canon Tristram, in the oases of the Sahara, 
as far south as 32 0 N. lat. 
Habits.- — Savi’s Warbler is said to be less shy than the other 
species of Reed-Warbler, and does not sing so much at night 
as the latter. Its song, which is a monotonous whirr, is to be 
heard all day when the weather is fine, but the bird becomes 
silent if the weather is boisterous or the nights are cold. It 
frequents large reed-beds, and diligently climbs up 'reed after 
reed, but is only to be seen when it perches on the top of one 
of them to run off its monotonous reel, as Mr. Seebohm puts 
it. The call-note is a short Krr. From its note it used to be 
called the “ Red Craking Reed-Wren” or “Reel-bird” bythe fen- 
men, just as the Grasshopper Warbler is called the “ Reeler ” 
at the present day. From the account of the bird’s habits 
published by Count Casimir Wodzicki we learn that both sexes 
take part in the construction of the nest, and the male takes 
part in the duties of incubation. It is a decidedly quarrel- 
some bird. 
Nest. — As with other Reed-Warblers, the nest is carefully 
concealed. It is not, however, suspended on reeds, but is 
placed on the tangled blades, or in a tuft of spiky rush, and 
according to Count Wodzicki, resembles that of a miniature 
Crake. It is a compound of flat leaves of grass, generally “sweet 
grass,” with narrower leaves for the lining. The English nest 
in the British Museum is entirely composed of dead rushes and 
