File:Our native songsters (1853) (14563928349).jpg

Identifier: ournativesongste00prat (find matches)
Title: Our native songsters
Year: 1853 (1850s)
Authors: Pratt, Anne, 1806-1893
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: London : Printed for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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grow around the borders of theThames. This bhd is but a summer visitor to our land,coming hither in April, and staying till October;and its companion among the sedges, the ReedWarbler,* or Reed Wren (Sahcana anoidiimced),arrives at about the same season, though it usuallydeparts earlier in tlic year. Though it wears asober suit, this bird, too, is a gladsome creature,and, like its congener, lives on the food to be foundin and near the waters, feasting on the little wormsand slugs which lie among the leaves, or seizingthe fresh-water shell-hsh when it comes to breathethe air of the surface, easily disposing of theshelly house, by breaking the fragile tenement withits beak. Nor do our birds hesitate to arrest thebrilliant dragon-fly which soars around the stream,or to stop suddenly the singing of the gnat, which * The Eeed Warbler is five inches and a half in length.Upper parts pale reddish-brown without spots; chin and throatwhite; breast and belly pale buff; beak and feet pale brown.
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TEE REED WAEBLER. 113 is dancing there in intricate mazes. Tlie reed-lings seem to live in perfect harmony with tliesedcje birds, and sing and build among the rusheswitli them. The reed warbler, however, differsfrom them in this, that it never flits away to aneighbouring bough to sing, but confines itselfclosely to the reedy shore. The song is moresweet and varied than that of the sedge warbler,and though hurried, and sometimes apparentlyimitative of other birds, yet it is not intermingledwith many harsh notes. It may be heard chieflyat morning or evening twilight. At times itresembles the words tran, tran, tran, repeateda dozen or fifteen times in succession. And it isso loud that it may be heard far away from thestream side. The nest of the reed warbler is very beautiful.It is a long, deep structure, and is hung upon thereeds, or rather intermixed among them ; threereeds serving as poles for its support. It is formedof branches of reeds and long grass wound roundand round, and mingl

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