Notes from Japan. \Vi 



accident and only contained a broken egg-shell. It was also 

 placed on a bank and under trees, but in this case the only 

 concealment was the surrounding herbage. They were very 

 similar in construction, being chiefly composed of dead and 

 half-rotten leaves with a few grass-blades intermixed and 

 lined with the seed-stalks of moss. The eggs are pure white 

 without much gloss, but before being blown the yolk inside 

 gives them a translucent yellowish-piidv appearance. They 

 measure 065 xO"5 in. 



16. Phylloscopus xaxthodryas Swinhoe. Swinhoe's 

 "Willow- War bier. 



Phylloscopus xanthodryas Seebohm, B. Jap. Emp. p. 70. 



Jap. : Maboso. 



This bird inhabits a higher part of the forest than 

 P. coronat.us, although, wheu I first arrived at Subashiri, 

 small numbers were to be found in the same districts. It 

 was at an elevation of between four and five thousand feet on 

 the sides of Fuji that this bird became really common, and I 

 met with it in great abundance, but I was unfortunately too 

 early in the season to find any eggs. It is said to breed about 

 the middle or end of June. Like many of its allies it is a 

 persistent songster, and will sing all the time it is working 

 its way through the Avoods, so that its movements may be 

 easily followed by the ear. The song is vaguely suggestive 

 of that of a Chiffchaff, but is more of a continuous trill, 

 sounding like chuchirra, chi-chirra, chi-chirra. 



17. AcROCEPHALUs ORiENTALis (Temra. & Schl.). Eastern 

 Great Reed-Warbler. 



Acrocephalas orientalis Seebohm, B. Jap. Emp. p. 71. 



Jap. : Oyoshikiri. 



This species is abundant in many of the reed- beds, where 

 its habits and song seem almost identical with those of its 

 European representative A. arundinaceus. 1 visited a swampy 

 part of Lake Yamanaka, which is rather more than two 

 thousand feet above the sea-level, and there found it a 

 common bird ; but the nests were only being built on June 3rd, 

 and I discovered no eggs. 



