356 sylvitd.t:. 



that on September 16tli, 1854, Mr. Swaysland noticed at 

 Plumpton Bostliill, about six miles from Brighton, a bird 

 which he at first took for a cream-coloured variety of the 

 Nightingale. Having obtained a gun, and returned to the 

 spot, he found the bird about twenty yards from where he 

 first observed it. It was very wary, flying always to the 

 further side of some furze-bushes, and mounting into the air 

 some fifteen yards, with a flight resembling that of the 

 young of the Red-backed Shrike. He at last shot it. Mr. 

 Borrer adds : — " The bird, on dissection, proved to be a 

 male, and would shortly have moulted, one or two young 

 feathers of the primaries having made their appearance on 

 each wing : these are darker than the old ones. The 

 feathers, also, on the back and tail, especially the central 

 ones of the latter, are much worn. I borrowed the bird and 

 sent it to Mr. Yarrell." It is now in the collection of Mr. 

 Fuller-Maitland. In November, 1859, the late Mr. G. R. 

 Gray recorded (Ann. and Mag. N. H. ser. 3, iv. p. 399) 

 the occurrence of a second example. This was shot in 

 September, 1859, a very strong south wind having prevailed 

 for nearly a week previously, at the Start in Devonshire, by 

 Mr. W. Llewellyn and given by him to the British Museum. 

 The bird was not observed until it was shot, at which moment 

 it was flying over a stone-wall, within an hundred yards of 

 the sea. It was exceedingly thin and had lost its tail. 



Although the beauty of this species might have been ex- 

 pected to attract and invite attention, its habits until of late 

 were but little known. It seems to have been first indicated 

 from a specimen obtained near Gibraltar, in the Leverian Mu- 

 seum, by Latham (Synopsis ii. pt. 1, p. 33) as a variety of the 

 "Reed Thrush " to be presently mentioned; but its distinctness 

 as a species was established by Temminck, who described speci- 

 mens procured at San Roque and Algeciras by a brother of the 

 celebrated Johann Natterer. This species does not seem to have 

 been observed in France, and in Europe is chiefly confined to 

 the eastern and western peninsulas. Mr. Gatke has noticed its 

 occurrence in Heligoland, but that island and England, in 

 the two cases just mentioned, are the only northern localities 



