By most people the Garden Warbler is considered to rank next to the Blackcap as a melodist, and the songs of the two species resemble each other so much that I have known a naturalist with a good ear and wide experience unable to say definitely which bird was singing until he got a sight of the vocalist. Mr. Hudson says that “the Garden Warbler’s song is like a good imitation of the Blackcap’s, but it is not so powerful and brilliant. Some of its notes possess the same bright, pure, musical quality, but they are hurriedly delivered, shorter, more broken up, as it were. On the other hand, to compensate for this inferior character there is more of it; the bird, sitting concealed among the clustering leaves, will sing by the hour, his rapid, warbled strain sometimes lasting for several minutes without a break.” [Illustration: GARDEN WARBLER’S NEST AND EGGS.] The song is certainly softer, and lacks something of the wild dash and irregularity of that of its relative, but some of its notes are quite as sweet, and this fact strikes the listener, particularly when the bird is heard close at hand in some quiet, out-of-the-way corner where other vocalists do not interfere with the full enjoyment of the Garden Warbler’s song. The alarm note is a harsh “_tech_,” sounding something like the noise made by two pebbles being struck together. [Illustration: trees and shrubs] =THE MARSH WARBLER.= [Illustration: flowers and leaves] On account of its great similarity of size, general appearance, and habitat, this rare British breeding species was long confounded by naturalists with the Reed Warbler. The bird is greenish-olive on its upper parts, and lacks the rusty-red rump and sides of the commoner species. Its under parts are white, slightly tinged with yellowish-buff on the sides where the Reed Warbler is reddish buff. Its legs are pale flesh-brown in colour, whereas those of its relative are dark slaty-brown. This species does not build its nest over water, whereas the one with which it has been confounded nearly always does so. The structure is composed of grass stems, and occasionally bits of moss intermixed on the outside with an inner lining of fine dead grass, and nearly always contains one or two black horsehairs. It is not so neatly finished as that of the Reed Warbler, and is generally suspended amongst nettles, Meadow Sweet, and Mugwood, the last plant appearing, where I have studied the species, to be first favourite. The eggs, numbering from four to seven, are easily distinguished from those of the Reed Warbler by their lighter ground colour, which is greenish-white to greenish-blue clouded with underlying markings of grey and spotted with olive-brown. It is as a singer of great sweetness and power, however, that the bird chiefly concerns us in this little work.