Letters, Announcements, ^c. 199 



niine^ inasmuch as all the specimens of Cyornis tickellia which 

 he obtained proved to be females. I shall be curious to learn 

 whether a specimen has ever been obtained which proved on dis- 

 section to be a male. For my own part, having had further 

 opportunities of studying the subject, I am convinced that the 

 female oi '^ Cyornis banyumas'^ is either "C. tickellice" itself or 

 a bird exactly answering the description of C. tickellicB as given 

 by Jerdon. 



Gibraltar, December 6th, 1871. 

 Sir, — Allow me to add to Mr. H. Saunders's " List of the 

 Birds of Southern Spain" the following species : — 



1. Cypselus pallidus, Shelley, Ibis, 1870, p. 445. 



I have certainly seen this species more than once at Gibraltar, 

 in April, but have not yet obtained a specimen. Those obtained 

 by Olgese at Tangier were killed early in April or late in March ; 

 but it is by no means common there. In M. Favier's list 

 it is named " C murinus " of Fairmaire. 



2. Parus cristatus. " Capuchiuo." 



Kesident and very common in the cork-wood of Almoraima, 

 ten miles from Gibraltar, and found in all the districts in the 

 vicinity where there are any cork trees, in which trees, in com- 

 mon with Parus major and P. cceruleus, they nest. They also 

 nest in the first pine-wood, about six miles from Gibraltar. 

 They begin to lay about the 11th of May. The sexes are exactly 

 similar in plumage, except perhaps that the crest of the male 

 is more developed. I saw this bird once in April, near Laracla, 

 in Morocco, on a cork tree. 



3. Sylvia melanocephala. 



Resident, extremely abundant and conspicuous, and one of the 

 few warblers nesting on the Rock of Gibraltar. I have had 

 several nests in my garden, the earliest date on which an egg 

 was laid being the 12th of March. The number of eggs varies 

 from three to five ; the nest, very slight, formed of grass and 

 sometimes cotton threads, is lined with hair, and always placed 

 in some thick bush about two or three feet from the ground. 



The male sits as well as the female. In habits this bird much 



