Although certainly a singer, the Reed Bunting is not a great feathered musician, its song consisting of a few simple notes which the bird delivers with considerable persistency from the top of a reed or alder bush. It sounds like _te, te, tu, te_, diversified by an occasional discordant _raytsh_. Bechstein, the great German authority on cage birds, says that it is such an admirer of music that it will approach an instrument without fear, and testify to its joy by extending its wings and tail like a fan and shaking them. The alarm cry is a sharp twitter, and when the male is afraid to approach the nest (either to take his turn in the labours of brooding or with food for the young) on account of some real or fancied danger, he persistently reiterates three melancholy notes that sound like “_Don’t hit me._” This species breeds fairly commonly near sluggish streams, ponds, swamps, and large sheets of water with reed-clad shores. [Illustration: FEMALE REED BUNTING AND YOUNG.] Its nest is generally situated amongst long grass, rushes, nettles, and sedges, although I have found it in the heather in the Outer Hebrides, and in a small thorn bush quite two hundred yards away from water in Surrey. The materials used in the structure are dried grass and moss with an inner lining of fine dead grass, hairs, and the feathery tops of reeds. The eggs number four to six or even seven, and are of a purplish-grey or pale olive ground colour, spotted and streaked with rich, dark purple-brown. This bird resides with us all the year round, and its numbers are increased during the winter by other members of its species arriving from the Continent. [Illustration: marsh landscape] =THE GOLDFINCH.= [Illustration: thistle in bloom] This exceedingly pretty bird measures about five inches in length. The top of its head, nape, and the feathers from the base of the bill to the eye are black; forehead and throat rich scarlet; cheeks and under parts white, tinged on the breast and sides with pale, tawny-brown. Back pale tawny-brown, wing-coverts and quills black, the latter barred across with yellow and tipped with white. Tail quills black marked with white, and buffy-white near their tips. Seventy years ago this species was extremely abundant, and as recently as 1873 a boy caught close upon five hundred during a single morning near to Brighton; but it is now, alas! comparatively rare, on account of the reclamation of waste lands having destroyed its seed-food plants, such as the thistle and burdock, and the heavy demands made upon its numbers for cage pets. Of course, a check has now been put upon the latter source of drainage to a great extent by the Wild Birds’ Protection Acts, and the birds are obtained from Germany.