152 Mr. H. Seebohm on the 



between the third and fourth. On the other hand^ out of ten 

 examples in Dresser's and my own collections of A. strejjerus, 

 eight have the second primary equal to the fourth, and in two it 

 is intermediate between the fourth and fifth. Dresser has iden- 

 tified S. arundinacea of Severtzofl" with A.strepe7^us, without, 

 however, giving any description. I therefore take it for granted 

 that the bill is about the size of that bird's (say culmen -63 to -7) . 

 From ' Stray Feathers ' {loc. cit. clause 33) I get the addi- 

 tional information that the tail is shorter than the wing, and 

 the second primary equal to the sixth. The wing is too much 

 rounded for either A. streperus or A. jjalustris ; the bill is 

 too large and the tail too short for A. agricola ; but all the 

 three items of information we possess point to Acrocephalus 

 dumetorum (Blyth), with which species I am accordingly in- 

 clined to identify it. 



Salicaria brevipennis (p. 83) is certainly not an Acrocephalus 

 at all, the first primary being twice as long as the coverts. We 

 must look for this bird amongst the smaller and greyer species 

 of Hypolais — opaca, pallida, rama, or caligata. To decide 

 to which of these species it belongs we must have the length 

 of the culmen. This is given as 3| lines. This is manifestly 

 an impossible measurement. In Blanford's ^ Eastern Persia ' 

 (ii. p. 192) we find the following measurements of the culmen 

 of the three smaller of these species given — H. pallida '72 to 

 •68 inch, H. rama "68 to "57, and H. caligata '55 to '5. Severt- 

 zoff's measurements are undoubtedly those from the point of 

 the bill to the beginning of the feathers. I shall shortly 

 identify, from evidence independent of the length of the cul- 

 men, the next species, S: capistrata, Sev., with Acrocephalus 

 agricola (Jerd.). Severtzoff gives 4 lines as the length of 

 culmen of S. capistrata. The true length of culmen of A. 

 agricola is "SS. We may therefore construct the following 

 table for translating Severtzoff's length of bill in lines into 

 true length of culmen in decimals of an inch: — 3|="51, 

 3| = -53, 4= -55, 4i = -62, 5 = '69, which we shall find very 

 useful as we go on. The bill of S. brevipenfiis being 3| lines, 

 equal to culmen '53, there can be little doubt that this bird is 

 Hypolais caligata (Licht.). 



