THE SONG OF A WOOD WHEN. 
153 
each Cuckoo would have those of the species that had fostered 
it. 
We are told certainly sometimes in hooks of one bird or another 
being quite a mocking bird, and this has been asserted of our own 
Sedge Warbler {Salicaria phragmitis), a species common in summer 
in willow -beds and in low -lying hedges by streams or ponds near 
Plymouth. I maintain, however, that this bird has as definite a 
song as most others, and that it has acquired the reputation of 
being a mocking bird simply from the fact of many of its notes 
resembling most remarkably those of some other species ; for we 
find different Sedge Warblers, all giving forth the same sequence 
of notes. Here will be the chatter as of the Blue Tit, there some- 
thing like the alarm-note of the swallow in the songs of the whole 
lot. This would surely not be the case were the songs merely 
imitative, and not original. 
In about six or seven weeks from the present time the Wood 
Wren and Sedge Warbler will both be here from a warmer clime, 
and I ask such readers of the Journal as have the requisite time, 
and the inclination, to pay particular attention to the songs of these 
birds. I venture to affirm they will not find one among a hundred 
of either giving forth any notes except those belonging to its 
species. 
T. E. Abcher Beiggs. 
MarcJi 8th, 1871. 
