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SYLVIA Phragmites. 
The Sedge Warbler. 
S. Phragmites. Yellowish brown, with dusky spots, beneath dirty 
white, tail-coverts pale tawny, over the eye a white stripe. 
Sylvia Phragmites. Temm. man. d’ornith. v. 1. p. 190. Linn, trans. 
vol. 15. p. 17. 
Sylvia salicaria. Turt.Brit. Faun. v. l.p.46. not of Linnaeus . 
Bill black, pale beneath, broad at the base. Cheeks pale brown ; 
over the eye-brows a black stripe. Breast and sides darker. Quills 
and tail dusky, the former edged with olive-brown. Tail a little 
wedge-form. Legs dusky : toes large. 
This pretty little species is very plentiful in the 
neighbourhood of London, which it visits the begin- 
ning of April, and leaves again in September, frequent- 
ing the sides of the river, or any ditches, where there is 
a thicket of Reeds, or Sedge, in which it builds its 
nest, and is almost continually in song, both by day 
and night ; its song consists of a variety of notes, some 
of which are very loud, and may be heard at a con- 
siderable distance, generally beginning with chit , chit , 
chiddy, chiddy , chiddy, chit, chit , chit. It is readily 
caught in a Nightingale- trap, baited with a living 
green caterpillar or a butterfly, as in a wild state it 
feeds entirely on living insects ; almost all sorts of flies, 
small moths, and butterflies, besides various sorts of 
caterpillars, and other small insects. It is a very lively 
