llcv. II. 15. Tristraiu on the Ornitholuyy uf Palestine. 79 



Cetti's Warbler is by no means among the rarest of the Sali- 

 carians of the Holy Land. I say Cetti's Warbler generically ', 

 for, though I should not wish to be included by critics among 

 the species-manufacturers like Brehm, yet I must claim 

 some distinctness for the Oriental Cettia. The plumage is de- 

 cidedly more chocolate-colour, and the bill both longer and 

 much broader at the base. I can see no difference between 

 Spanish, Algerian, and Italian specimens, which are perfectly 

 identical. The diagnosis of what 1 will venture to call Cettia 



(POTAMODUS) ORIENTALIS is this 



Statura simillima C sericea, dorso quoqne concolor, sed pcctore 

 et ventro olivaceo nee cincrco fuscata : rostrum 0*7 a rictu 

 et 0"2 in latitudine ad basim ; quod in C sericea 0*5 a 

 rictu, et 0"15 in latitudine ad basim. 



The olive hue of the white of the lower parts at once distin- 

 guishes it. It is a very late arrival from the south : at least it 

 was not till May that we heard its unmistakeable note; for it was 

 rarely to be seen, and possibly might have been skulking in 

 silence before the nuptial season evoked its song. It seems to 

 prefer the margins of very narrow streams and ditches, so long 

 as they arc well fringed with thicket, to larger pieces of swamp ; 

 and most tantalizing was it time after time to hear the sudden 

 burst of a resounding song like the first part of a Nightingale's 

 suddenly cut short, from the centre of some impenetrable tangle 

 of prickly bramble, into which we might pitch stones in vain until 

 we were startled by the same note issuing from the next thicket. 

 Often as I expended time, eyes, and powder, I only secured three 

 specimens, after killing perhaps a score ; for to retrieve them was 

 almost hopeless. They start up, and dart down the moment 

 they have cut short their abrupt distrain. A snap shot, and, 

 unless the bird fell impaled on a thorn, search was useless, with 

 a bottom six feet deep in tangle. I once had a double shot, 

 which cost me dear. Wading up a tributary of the Barada in 

 pursuit, I at length got a good momentary view of the prize ; but 

 while securing him some of the shot had gone further, and on 

 the other side of the bramble-thicket had struck a peasant of 

 Zebdany in the face and eye. The Syrians are not so amiable 

 as Lord Lilford's pretty Spaniard promised to be had he bagged 



