NON-INDIGENOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 59 



Family TURDID.^. Genus Sylvia. 



Sub-family SYLVIINj^. 



ORPHEAN WARBLER. 



Sylvia orphea, Temtninck. 

 (British : Possibly breeds ; very rare abnormal spring migrant.) 

 Single Brooded. Laying season, end of April and in May. 



Breeding area : South-west Palaearctic region. 

 The Orphean Warbler breeds in Central and Southern 

 France, German Lorraine, throughout the Spanish 

 Peninsula in suitable districts, in Dalmatia, Turkey, 

 Greece, Southern Russia, Asia Minor, and Palestine. It 

 should be remarked that examples from the two latter 

 countries are intermediate between typical Sylvia orphea 

 and 5. orphea jerdoni^ which ranges through Persia and 

 Turkestan to India. South of the Mediterranean the 

 typical Orphean Warbler breeds in Morocco and 

 Algeria. 



Breeding habits: As is almost universally the 

 case with birds that do not breed so far north or west 

 as the British Islands, the Orphean Warbler is a some- 

 what late migrant, not reaching its more southerly 

 European haunts before the first or second week in 

 April. Like its near ally the Blackcap, it is a secretive 

 species, and loves to frequent localities in which there 

 is plenty of cover. Olive groves, cork woods, and 

 vineyards are a favourite resort, as well as the rough 

 uncultivated ground covered with bushes and thickets, 

 between the zone of the vines and olives and the pine 

 zone. Of the pairing habits of this species nothing 

 appears to be recorded. It probably pairs annually. 

 The nest is made in a bush of some kind or in a low 

 tree — it has been found in a cork-oak twelve feet from 



