Mr. T. Ayres on the Ornithology of Transvaal. 289 



sects which frequent the honey-dews on the pollard willows, 

 for weeks together, appear to attract it. It is very retiring, 

 and difficult to see amongst the dense foliage, where it sits 

 and babbles for hours together. The hen bird has a short 

 harsh note of alarm. 



[Some remarks of Mr. Ayres in ' The Ibis ' for 1865, 

 p. 266, which were intended to aj)ply to this species, have 

 been erroneously referred by Captain Shelley in 'The Ibis' 

 for 1875, p. 72, and by Mr. Sharpe in the second edition of 

 Layard's ' Birds of South Africa,^ p. 292, to A. palustris. 



Mr. Seebohm has called my attention to the fact that this 

 species comes exceedingly close to A. dumetorum, a native of 

 Eastern Europe and of some parts of Asia, and has kindly 

 furnished me with the following remarks on this subject : — 



" At the first glance, Acrocephalus bceticatus seems to be 

 the same bird as ^. dumetorum; both are about the same 

 size, the relative lengths of the wing-primaries are the same, 

 and there is no difference in the respective lengths of the 

 bastard primary or of the culmen. It is true that the colour 

 of the upper part of A. bceticatus is more of a coffee-brown, 

 whilst in A. dumetorum the colour is more of an olive-brown; 

 but that is exactly what we might reasonably expect to be the 

 difference between summer and winter plumage. 



" The argument from the known facts of geographical distri- 

 bution is all on the side of the identity of the two species. All 

 the dated skins oiA. bceticatus which I have seen were obtained 

 in South Africa between October and April. A. dumetorum is 

 found in Eussia, from St. Petersburg to the Ural, from June 

 to September ; it also breeds in North Turkestan, in Siberia, 

 and in the Himalayas, and it winters in the plains of India. 



'' I am inclined, however, to admit the distinctness of the 

 two species. A careful examination and comparison of seven- 

 teen skins oi A. beeticatus and twenty skins of ^. dumetorum 

 leads to the following results : — The colour of the upper parts 

 of A. bmticatus is decidedly more of a coffee-brown than is the 

 case with the skins of A. dumetorum in summer plumage, and 

 perceptibly more so than is the case with the skins of the 

 latter bird in winter plumage ; in fact the difference in colour 



SKR. IV. — VOL. II. X 



