THE REED WARBLER. 
27 
catkins, tangled feathery grasses in such variety that as you stand up to your neck 
in them you may pluck a dozen kinds without moving, blue clusters of forget-me- 
nots, foxgloves, spikes of purple loose-strife and broad tufts of valerian, bushes of 
woody nightshade, and, sweeter than all, masses upon masses all the way along of 
the cream-white and strong-scented meadow-sweet—these are what make the immediate 
banks changing panoramas of kaleidoscopic beauty. Then on the water, beneath the 
reeds, and across shallow bays, and in the little ‘ pulks,’ or miniature Broads, which 
everywhere open off the river, are lilies, yellow and white, in dazzling abundance.” 
The Reed Warbler is a great songster, and may be heard throughout the day except 
in windy weather, but is said to delight chiefly in singing through the twilight of a 
summer night. It frequently indulges in mimicry of other birds’ songs, and its strains 
are not so interrupted by the harsh twittering which often spoils the effect of the 
Sedge Warbler’s melody. Perhaps Mr. Tennyson was thinking of the Reed Warbler 
when he penned the following striking description of the bulbul’s song :— 
“ The living airs of middle night 
Died round the bulbul as he sung: 
Not he, but something which possessed 
The darkness of the world. Delight, 
Life, anguish, death, immortal love, 
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepressed.” 
He who would hear this bird must visit the following counties :—Essex, 
Surrey, Kent, Suffolk, and especially Norfolk. It is common on the banks of 
the Thames between Erith and Greenwich, in the reed-beds. Worms, insects, and 
fresh-water molluscs form its food. In these watery districts then the searcher 
may look out for a brown bird in its upper plumage, with a white throat and 
under plumage of a yellowish-white. It has no yellowish-white streak over the 
eye, as has the Sedge Warbler, neither is it so small as that bird. Both birds, 
however, are noticeable from the rounded form of their tails, of which the outer 
feathers are shorter than those in the centre. Besides these two birds, the Grass¬ 
hopper Warbler and Savi’s Warbler (the latter very scarce in England) make up 
the genus Salicaria, distinguished by its rounded tail, as has been said, and its 
partiality for watery situations. A single specimen of a fifth member of the family, 
the Great Sedge Warbler ( S . turdoides ), has been shot near Durham. This is the 
largest of the European Warblers, being eight inches in length. We can promise 
the intruder upon the watery domains where the Reed Warbler is found, a feast of 
beauty, if his eyes have been purged with the euphrasie which will enable him to 
