THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Some of their notes are quite equal to the full notes of the Nightingale of 
Europe. Where our small creeks in the Adelaide Hills grow a sufficient clump 
of tall reeds a pair or tw T o of Reed- War biers are sure to make it their home. 
In the centre of the City of Adelaide around the reedy banks of the River 
Torrens many of them nest annually.” 
Mr. J. W. Mellor has also written : “ The Reed-bird is well known in South 
Australia and nowhere better than at the reed-beds, where the emptying of 
the River Torrens encourages a rank growth of reeds and rushes and flags, 
and here during the late winter months and on well into the summer the 
beautiful melodious whistle of this little bird is heard in the dense growth of 
vegetation ; but as soon as the swamp waters dry up it leaves, although where 
the water is permanent I believe a few stay with us all the year round. The 
Reed-bird is found along the reedy banks of the River Torrens right into the 
City of Adelaide bounds, in fact any waters inland where reeds and rushes 
grow the bird frequents during the spring and summer months. Its whistling 
notes somewhat resemble certain notes of the common Canary, and are of a 
wonderfully liquid tone. It breeds from August to December and is 
particularly useful as an insect-destroyer, as its food consists solely of various 
insects which live in the water herbage, and is especially destructive to the 
grub that burrows into the reed stems and kills the tops of the reeds that are 
useful for thatching purposes.” 
Mr. Sandland writes: “Common along the swampy creeks in Buna district. 
South Australia, generally nesting during November and December.” 
Legge has written : “ The Reed- Warbler is a welcome harbinger of spring, 
and is, one might say, the only connecting link between the songsters of the 
old country and our far-off southern isle ; and yet it is a little known bird in 
Tasmania, being very local in its habitat and confined to those rivers and 
waters which are lined with the lofty water weed. It arrives in the island 
towards the latter end of September, and soon makes its presence known by its 
loud and not unmelodious warblings, issued forth from the dense shelter out 
of which it is rarely seen, and which are repeated through the night, after the 
habit of its congener in England, A. streperus. This Warbler was first noticed 
in the midlands, not being enumerated in the earlier lists of Tasmanian birds. 
It is plentiful in the great reed-beds in the North Esk between Launceston 
and St. Leonards, but is seldom visible, and its existence unknown to all who 
are unacquainted with its notes. In the south it is rare.” 
Berney’s notes read : “ With the advent of the artesian bore streams 
and their attendant bulrushes ( Typha ) the Reed- Warblers have invaded the 
western downs (Richmond district, North Queensland), and are now common 
where previously they were unknown. They are really beautiful songsters 
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