tle dry enough next spring, when the
sedge-birds come. A long withey-bed borders the brook and is more
resorted to by sedge-reedlings, or sedge-birds, as they are variously
called, than any place I know, even in the remotest country.

Generally it has been difficult to see them, because the withey is in
leaf when they come, and the leaves and sheaves of innumerable rods hide
them, while the ground beneath is covered by a thick growth of sedges
and flags, to which the birds descend. It happened once, however, that
the withey stoles had been polled, and in the spring the boughs were
short and small. At the same time, the easterly winds checked the
sedges, so that they were hardly half their height, and the flags were
thin, and not much taller, when the sedge-birds came, so that they for
once found but little cover, and could be seen to advantage.

There could not have been less than fifteen in the plantation, two
frequented some bushes beside a pond near by, some stayed in scattered
willows farther down the stream. They sang so much they scarcely seemed
to have time to feed. While approaching one that was singing by gently
walking on the sward by the roadside, or where thick dust deadened the
footsteps, suddenly another would commence in the low thorn hedge on a
branch, so near that it could be touched with a walking-stick. Yet
though so near the bird was not wholly visible--he was partly concealed
behind a fork of the bough. This is a habit of the sedge-birds. Not in
the least timid, they chatter at your elbow, and yet always partially
hidden.

If in the withey, they choose a spot where the rods cross or bunch
together. If in the sedges, though so close it seems as if you could
reach forward and catch him, he is behind the stalks. To place some
obstruction between themselves and any one passing is their custom: but
that spring, as the foliage was so thin, it only needed a little
dexterity in peering to get a view. The sedge-bird perches aside, on a
sloping willow rod, and, slightly raising his head, chatters, turning
his bill from side to side. He is a very tiny bird, and his little eye
looks out from under a yellowish streak. His song at first sounds
nothing but chatter.

After listening a while the ear finds a scale in it--an arrangement and
composition--so that, though still a chatter, it is a tasteful one. At
intervals he intersperses a chirp, exactly the same as that of the
sparrow, a chirp with a tang in it. St