ches. It is massive, but by no means neat;
composed of coarse water-grass, mingled with a few dead leaves and
fibrous roots of water-plants. The egg-cavity is lined with finer and
more compactly woven grass, and measures about 13/4 inch in diameter and
21/4 inches in depth.

It breeds in May and June; at the beginning of July all the nests
either contained young or were empty. Four is the full complement of
eggs.

Mr. Brooks noted _in epist._:--"_Srinuggur, 10th June_. I went out
early this morning on the lake here to look for eggs of _Acrocephalus
stentoreus_, but it came on to rain so heavily that I only partially
succeeded. I took three nests, two with three eggs each, and one with
four young ones, the latter half-hatched. The eggs very much resemble
large and boldly-marked Sparrows' eggs. They are smaller than the eggs
of _A. arundinaceus_, but very similar. The latter have larger clear
spaces without spots than those of our bird. I neither saw nor heard
any other aquatic warbler."

Later, in a paper on the eggs and nests he had obtained in Cashmere,
he stated that this species "breeds abundantly in the Cashmere lakes.
The nest is supported, about 18 inches above the water, by three or
four reeds, and is a deep cup composed of grasses and fibres. The eggs
are four, very like those of _A. arundinaceus_, but the markings are
more plentiful and smaller."

Captain Cock writes to me that "the Large Reed-Warbler is very common
in the reeds that fringe all the lakes in Cashmere. It breeds in June,
builds a largish nest of dry sedge, woven round five or six reeds, of
a deep cup form, which it places about 2 feet above the water. It lays
four or five eggs, rather blunt ovals, equally blunt at both ends,
blotched with olive and dusky grey on a dirty-white ground."

Mr. S.B. Doig, who found this bird breeding in the Eastern Narra in
Sind, writes:--"On the 4th August, while my man was poling along in
a canoe in a large swamp on the lookout for eggs, he passed a small
bunch of reeds and in them spotted a nest with a bird on it. The nest
contained three beautiful fresh eggs. A few days later I joined him,
and on asking about these eggs he described the bird and said he
had found several other nests of the same species, but all of them
contained young ones nearly fledged. I made him show me some of these
nests, all of which were situated in clumps of reed, in the middle of
the swamp, and in these same reeds I found and shot