SYLVIIN.tE. 



67 



THE CHIFFCHAFF. 



Phylloscopus rufus (Bechstein). 



The Chiffchaff is the earUest visitor among our spring migrants ; 

 the familiar note, from which its name is derived, being some- 

 times heard at the beginning of March, while a few birds often 

 pass the winter in various sheltered portions of our islands, 

 especially in Devon and Cornwall. Tolerably abundant in summer 

 in our southern counties, and particularly so in the south-west and 

 midlands, the Chiffchaff is somewhat rare, or local, in Norfolk, 

 Lancashire and the north-west of Yorkshire ; but more frequent in 

 Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham and Northumberland. In 

 Scotland it is everywhere much scarcer than the Willow-Wren, and 

 very rare to the north-west of the Great Glen, while merely a 

 straggler to the Outer Hebrides and Orkneys. In Ireland it breeds 

 in every wooded district. 



In Northern Europe the Chiffchaff ranges in summer to a little 

 above the Arctic circle and as far east as the valley of the Volga, 

 beyond which it is replaced by the Siberian Chiffchaff, Phylloscopus 

 tristis, a rather smaller bird, browner and duller in coloration. South- 

 ward, our Chiffchaff is generally distributed in suitable localities 

 as far as the shores and islands of the Mediterranean, and is 

 more or less resident south of the Pyrenees and the Alps ; while 

 its numbers are largely augmented at the times of migration and in 

 winter. At the latter season it is abundant in some parts of Africa 

 down to Abyssinia ; also in Arabia, Palestine, Asia Minor and 



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