On the Salicarise of Dr. Severtzoff. 151 



imagine may be fairly put down as only stray birds from a 

 regular and more numerous stream of migrants. The direction 

 that most of these birds came from would indicate they were 

 migrants from the coasts of Arabia and Persia, whatever their 

 destination may have been. One conviction has forced itself 

 on me, viz. the great influence which vessels, more especially 

 large and fast steamers of the present day, may have on the 

 distribution of species of birds. Some of our visitors re- 

 mained with us for days, and landed on shores most likely 

 out of the line of their migrations ; and in one instance a 

 Wagtail {Motacilla) remained with us all the way up the 

 Red Sea and Suez Canal, and found a new home on the 

 shores of the Mediterranean. 

 December 12th, 1876. 



XIV. — On the Salicarise of Dr, Severtzoff. 

 By Henry Seebohm. 



In 'The Ibis' for 1876 (pp. 83 et seqq.), Dresser has given 

 us as pretty a little ornithological puzzle as I have seen for 

 a long time in the Salicaria of SevertzofF^s ' Fauna of Tur- 

 kestan.^ There are no less than sixteen or eighteen of 

 them named and, more or less, described. The descriptions 

 of two of them, S. scita and S. arundinacea, are omitted ; but 

 fortunately these are supplied in a letter from Dr. Severtzoff 

 to the editor of ' Stray Feathers ' (Str. Feath. iii. p. 420) . 

 These two articles will, I think, supply sufiicient data to 

 unravel the tangle, 



Salicaria turdoides (p. 83) may be dismissed at once as 

 Acrocephalus arundinaceus (Linn.). 



Salicaria arundinacea (p. 83) might be thought naturally to 

 be either Acrocephalus streperus or A.palustris. I have never 

 had an opportunity of comparing these two birds in the flesh, 

 and cannot distinguish any diff'erence of general colour or of 

 colour of the legs in the skin. I find, however, that A. palus- 

 tris has a more pointed wing. Out of five of this species in 

 Dresser's collection I find that in one the second primary is 

 equal to the third, and in the four others intermediate in length 



M 2 



