The Annals 



of 



Scottish Natural History 



No. 69] 



1909 



[JANUARY 



ON THE OCCURRENCE OF EVERSMANN'S 

 WARBLER (PHYLLOSCOPUS BOREALIS 

 (BLASIUS)) AT FAIR ISLE: AN ADDITION 

 TO THE BRITISH FAUNA. 



By WM. EAGLE CLARKE, F.R.S.E., F.L.S. 



ON the 28th of September last, while in search of migra- 

 tory birds at Fair Isle, I put up from a patch of potatoes, 

 where it was hiding, a dark-coloured Willow Warbler, which 

 I at once suspected belonged to some species I had never 

 before seen in life. I was fortunate enough to secure the 

 bird, and congratulated myself, as I contemplated its out- 

 stretched wings each with a conspicuous single bar and its 

 well-defined, pale, superciliary stripe, on the capture of the 

 third British example of the Greenish Willow Warbler 

 (Ph. viridanus). 



On my return to Edinburgh, however, I was agreeably 

 surprised to find that my bird was undoubtedly an example 

 of Eversmann's Warbler (Ph. borealis] a bird which had 

 not hitherto been detected in Britain. The descriptions 

 of this species are misleading, far too much importance 

 being made of the so-called double wing-bar. The second bar 

 is absent in some examples, while in others it is only present 

 in the shape of a few flecks of greyish- white on the tips.of- 

 69 B 



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