THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 263 



85. — Northern Nightingale [Sprosser]. 

 SYLVIA PHILOMELA, Bechstem.i 



Sylvia jMlomda. Naumann, ii. 362. 



Northern Nightingale. Dresser, ii. 369. 



Bee-fin philom'eU. Temminck, Manuel, i. 196, iii. 126. 



Although the western limit of its breeding range extends from 

 Denmark to eastern Holstein, this bird, except in one solitary 

 instance, has never been met with in Heligoland. It would there- 

 fore appear that of the many migrants visiting this island from 

 high northern latitudes or the far East, few persist with such 

 stubbornness in the north-to-south direction of their line of flight 

 as does this species. The example referred to above was caught at 

 the lighthouse on the night of the 4th-.5th May, and is preserved 

 in my collection. 



This bird is found as a resident breeding species from the Pen- 

 insula of Jutland, through Denmark, in Lower Sweden, eastern 

 Finland, Poland, Hungary, Russia, and Turkestan. Scattered 

 examples also occur in eastern Germany. 



86. — Grey-backed Warbler [Rostfarbiger Sanger]. 



SYLVIA FAMILIARIS, Menetries.2 



* 



Sylvia galactodes. Naumann, xiii. 398 ; Blasius, Nachtrdge, p. 62. 



Grey-hacked Warbler. Dresser, ii. 553. 



Bee-fin rubigineux. Temminck, Manuel, i. 182, iii. 129, iv. 615. 



The only example of this southern songster ever caught here 

 was obtained by old Koopmann, from whose hands it passed, early 

 in the thirties, into the well-known collection of Mechlenburg, an 

 apothecary at Flensburg, where it is still to be found. Blasius, 

 whose attention I first called to it, saw it there shortly before the 

 publication of his Supplements to Naumann ; and Dresser also 

 examined it after his visit to me in the summer of 1881. Both 

 agree as to its belonging to the Eastern form, »S'. familiaris, under 

 which title it has been noted here. 



Up to the present I have not obtained this sjiecies here ; but 

 the occurrence of a ' Nightingale with a red tail edged by a beauti- 

 fril black and white terminal border,' has been twice reported to 

 me. One of these birds was seen by Glaus Aeuckens through a 

 gap in a garden hedge. The bird was hopping about, exactly after 



' Daulia^i philomda (Bechst.). - uf^don familiaris (Men^tries). 



