522 Short Communications : — 



fitly named S. melodia), but may, at once, be distinguished 

 from it by the dark brownish black colour of the legs and feet, 

 by the comparative shortness of the wings, by its smaller size, 

 and by the general darker and more brownish hue of the 

 plumage. Although it is the smallest of the three common 

 British species, the tibia bone of the leg is longer than that 

 of either the wood wren (S. sibilatrix), or the willow wren 

 (S. Trochilus auctorum 9 S. melodia? \_Blyth~]). This bone, I 

 may here observe, is shortest in the wood wren ; which last 

 species has also the gape of the mouth considerably wider 

 than in any of the others. The chiffchaff chiefly inhabits woods; 

 and though it has been said by most authors to haunt parti- 

 cularly the neighbourhood of firs and other evergreens, I 

 think it will be found that the individuals which frequent such 

 situations will turn out to be of the species S. rufa, confounded 

 hitherto with the other, from the similarity of their notes. 

 The common British chiffchaff seems to be entirely over- 

 looked by Continental writers, unless (what, indeed, is not 

 improbable) one of the birds alluded to by M. Temminck as 

 varieties ? of S. rufa may refer to it. 



The Sylvia rufa is a rather smaller species than S. loquax, 

 and of a shorter make; the ridge of the bill is more depressed, 

 and the legs and feet are of a very pale colour ; the general 

 hue of the upper parts, which in the chiffchaff are tinged 

 with greenish, in the rufous pettychaps incline toward a 

 slightly reddish brown, and the under parts have a faint but 

 decided tinge of russet; the only indication of the prevailing 

 characteristic colour of the genus being a little greenish yel- 

 low under the wing. I am sorry that the injured state of my 

 specimen prevents me from giving a more minute description 

 of this bird ; but sufficiently marked characters are here 

 mentioned to distinguish it easily from the chiffchaff. I have 

 hitherto searched in vain for the species in this part of Surrey, 

 but am nevertheless strongly inclined to suspect that it will 

 be established ere long as a regular summer visitant to the fir 

 districts in the south of England. The young in their nest- 

 ling plumage, I am informed, are of a dull ashy brown ; those 

 of S. loquax are much more beautiful than the adult birds, 

 the upper parts being of a livelier green, and the whole under 

 parts with the eye-streak being of a uniform fine pale yellow: 

 the eggs, however, of these two species are hardly to be dis- 

 tinguished, 



\_Sylvia hippoldis Temminck and Bechstein.] Mr. Gould, 

 in his valuable work on the Birds of Europe, has said that 

 M. Temminck has, probably by mistake, reversed the 

 synonymes of his S. hippolais and S. Trochilus. It does not, 



