SKETCHES OF EUROPEAN ORNITHOLOGY. 275 



Streak bright-yellow ; wing-feathers edged with yellow ; under sur- 

 face silvery-whiie. From the preceding outline, it appears that the 

 third species, S. sibilatrixj is principally distinguished, from the^r^^ 

 and seco7id, by a. the greater length of wing ; b. the bright-yellow 

 eye-streak ; and c. the silvery- white of the abdominal plumage : 

 and the second, S. hippolais, from the Jlrst, S. trochilus, by A. the 

 inferiority of size ; b. fainter eye-streak ; and c. the darker colour 

 of the legs. The legs of the Wood Wren exhibit, like those of the 

 Yellow Wren, a pale yellowish-brown hue. 



All these species are insectivorous and migratory ; and visit the 

 British islands only in the spring and summer. The Ghiff-Chaff, 

 so termed from its monotonous song, answering, in sound, to that 

 name, arrives, first, in March ; the Yellow Wren, about the begin- 

 ning of April ; the Wood Wren, a few days after. They are all 

 ground-builders. The nest, composed of dead leaves and grass, is, 

 by the two first birds, profusely lined with feathers ; by the Wood 

 Wren, invariably withj^we grass and hair. The eggs, from five to 

 seven in number, of a white colour, speckled with purplish-red, or 

 reddish-brown, more thickly at the larger end than elsewhere, are 

 not readily traceable to their respective species. The spots of the 

 ChifilChaff's G,g'g are, ordinarily, darker in hue and fewer in number, 

 than those on the Yellow Wren's. For the characters of the re- 

 formed genus, see Selby's Illustrations, v. i., p. 221. 



Plate XIII. — The Eared Grebe, — Podiceps auritus. Five 

 European and British species of Podiceps are described by Tera- 

 minck and Selby. Of these, the subject of the present admirably- 

 executed plate, comprizing figures of a young and an adult male, is 

 one of the most rare and beautiful. P. auritus (Colymhus auritus, 

 of Linnaeus and Brisson), — Grebe Oreillard, Fr., — Colimbo Suasso 

 Turco, //., — Geohrter oder ohren Steissfuss, G., — is principally dis- 

 tinguished from its nearly-allied congener, P. cornutus, by the ab- 

 sence of the chestnut-coloured neck, and the rufous stripe which 

 passes from the base of the bill, through the eye, to the occiput. 

 The young, destitute of the long, silky, and radiating ear-feathers, 

 from which the adult bird has acquired its specific designation, and 

 of an uniform grey colour above, so closely resembles the young of 

 cornutus that they have been confounded together, and regarded, by 



t2 



