It is called the Lesser Redpole, because it is rather smaller than its near relative, the Mealy Redpole, which breeds on the Continent and sometimes visits this country in winter. The breeding area of the Lesser Redpole seems to be almost restricted to the British Islands. This species flocks during the autumn, and although many remain with us throughout the winter, numbers migrate to the Continent. The call notes are _pe-weet_ and _kreek, kreek, hayid_. [Illustration: landscape with rustic road] =THE REED WARBLER.= [Illustration: cattails] This species arrives upon our shores during the latter part of April, and leaves again for its winter quarters in Africa during September, although a specimen is said to have been shot in Ireland, where the bird does not breed, as late even as December. The Reed Warbler is about five and a half inches in length, is brown on its upper parts, tinged with chestnut, which becomes more pronounced on the rump and white on the under parts, tinged with reddish buff, especially on the breast and sides. Its legs and toes are slaty-brown. It breeds in reed and osier beds and other places where there is plenty of cover to suit its skulking habits, on the banks of lakes, ponds, and sluggish streams, and is much commoner on the east and southern sides of England than the west and north. I have met with it commonly in certain parts of Gloucestershire, and it is said to be fairly numerous in Wales. It does not, however, breed in Scotland or Ireland. [Illustration: REED WARBLER’S NEST AND EGGS.] [Illustration: MALE AND FEMALE REED WARBLERS AT HOME.] The nest is a very beautiful structure, formed of long blades of dead grass, seed, branches of reeds, and bits of wool lined inside with fine dead grass and hair. It is cleverly suspended between two, three, four, or even as many as five reed stems at varying heights above the water. I have, however, on several occasions seen it in willow and alder bushes at some distance from that element, and it has even been found in a lilac bush in such a very unlikely neighbourhood as Hampstead. [Illustration: YOUNG REED WARBLER] The structure is very deep for the size of the builder, but this peculiarity of its architecture serves a very useful purpose, for when the reeds to which it is attached are violently swayed to and fro by strong gusts of wind, it prevents the eggs from rolling out and away to certain destruction. The eggs, numbering from four to six, are of a dull greenish-white or greyish-green ground colour, spotted and blotched with darker greyish-green and light brown. The male helps the female not only in the work of feeding the chicks, but in brooding, and it is a very pretty sight to see them exchanging places on the nest.