388 sylviid.t:. 



tine, and its asserted appearance in Egypt is more than 

 doubtful. Nor is it recorded from Greece or Turkey. It is 

 found in Sicily and Italy, but is apparently rare in both. 

 In Algeria Loclie says it occurs accidentally. Mr. Drake 

 obtained it in Morocco in March, and Mr. Saunders says 

 it is frequently heard in southern Spain, near Malaga, where 

 it remains through the winter. In France it is very widely 

 spread, and is said to be especially common in Britany. Its 

 eastern boundaries in Europe, if it does not go to Asia, 

 cannot yet be traced, but they will no doubt soon be laid 

 down, after full investigation of the section of aquatic 

 Warblers to which the present species and its allies belong. 



The bill is brown, with the base of the lower mandible 

 paler : the irides hazel : the top of the head, back, and 

 wings, greenish-brown, the middle of each feather being 

 darker, and thus producing a mottled appearance ; the tail 

 brown with faint bars ; the chin, throat, breast and belly, 

 pale brown, spotted with darker brown on the neck and 

 breast; flanks and lower wing -coverts of a deeper tint, with 

 dark median patches ; lower tail-coverts, which are very 

 long, pale brown, streaked along the shaft with darker 

 brown : legs, toes and claws, pale yellowish-brown. 



The whole length five inches and a half. The wings 

 short and curved : from the carpal joint to the end of the 

 longest primary, two inches and three-eighths ; the second 

 primary longer than the fifth, but not so long as the fourth ; 

 the third the longest in the wing. This species, as before 

 stated, has no bristles at the gape. 



Females do not diff"er much from males on the upper parts of 

 the body ; but are said to want the brown spots on the breast. 



This species was, in 1829, made by Dr. Kaup the type of 

 his genus Locustdla, and beside the differences already in- 

 dicated between it and the aquatic Warblers hitherto described 

 here, the additional character may be given, that it has the 

 tendons of the tibial muscles strongly ossified. 



Li(sciniopsis hendersoni ot Cassiii (Proc. Acad. Philad. 1858, p. 194). Another 

 eastern species, wliicli, though very distinct, has been confounded with it, is the 

 Sylvia laiiceolata of Temminck. 



