28 
PICTURES OF BIRD LIFE. 
see it. We have already quoted a prose account of these singular localities ; 
Lowell furnishes an excellent companion picture in verse— 
“ Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of sight 
Who cannot in their various incomes share, 
From every season drawn, of shade and light, 
Who sees in them but levels brown and bare ; 
Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free 
On them its largess of variety, 
For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare. 
“All round, upon the river’s slippery edge, 
Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, 
Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge; 
Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide, 
Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun, 
And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run 
Of dimpling lights, and with the current seem to glide.” * 
There is the nest of the bird to be seen, and what a marvel of beauty and 
constructive ingenuity is it! It may be compared advantageously in both respects 
with the nest of the Pensile Grosbeak (Loxia ftensilis), an African nest-weaving 
bird. Our bird interweaves its nest between the stems of two, three, four, or some¬ 
times as many as five reeds, with the seed-branches of the reeds and grass, mixed 
with a little wool, all wound round and together so as to be supported at the 
same height, however much wind may shake the reeds. It measures five inches 
in depth outside, and is often three inches deep inside, so that when the reeds 
are waving in the wind the eggs do not roll out, and the bird has been seen 
sitting safely on them when almost every gust forced it to the surface of the 
water. Indeed the nest is so strongly interwoven and compacted that it may be 
carried away intact, if the reeds which uphold it are cut below, and be preserved 
as a beautiful specimen of bird architecture. When the nest thus sways in the 
wind, the old bird is careful to fix her claws firmly into its sides, and then keeping 
her head towards the wind, swings perfectly secure. The eggs are dull greenish- 
white, speckled with olive and light brown, and are four or five in number. The 
young soon quit the nest after being hatched, and by means of their sharp claws 
cling with much facility to the reeds. The cuckoo frequently lays her egg in a 
Reed Warbler’s nest. Mr. Thomas relates a curious scene which he once beheld, 
when a young cuckoo, having settled on a rail, was being fed by its foster-mother, 
a Reed Warbler:—“ The difference in the size of the two birds was great; it was 
* “An Indian Summer Reverie. 
