The Oologists' Record, Jiiiic i, 1921. 33 



It is a summer visitor. I do not know whether this species breeds 

 in the Jordan Valley. 



Before leaving the subject of Acrocepiialus, I would like to say 

 that there was little doubt that one of tl\e larger Reed Warblers, 

 probably A. stentoreus, was breeding in u large bog in the coastal 

 region a few miles south of Jaffa. There were several males singing 

 loudly in a reed bed at the edge of an e.xtensive bog when I visited 

 it at the end of May and in early June, but this reed bed was quite 

 unapproachable being completely surrounded by a liquid black 

 ooze. Similarly, if I had shot any of the songsters I could not 

 have recovered them. Lack of time only prevented me from 

 devising a means of negotiating this treacherous area. This large 

 and noisy Reed Warbler is a summer visitor. 



I have no data regarding the arrival and departure in Palestine 

 of the breeding species of Acrocephalus. 



There is another Warbler present in the marshy locahties on the 

 coast during May, June and July — but, owing to its habits, rarely 

 seen, for it lives in the densest of cover and thick tangle of under- 

 growth, and is rarely seen long enough even to obtain a snapshot 

 at it. Sometimes when offering a splendid target, it has invariably 

 escaped as I have had no weapon at hand ! I noticed these birds 

 sparingly though fairly regularly during the above-mentioned 

 months and concluded that they must be breeding, but I never 

 found any nests either new or old which 1 might allocate to them, 

 and which would have helped to identify the owners. The Warbler 

 I think was a Cettia, but failing that may have been a Liisciniola , 

 though it is possible that both may breed in those parts. I say 

 this, as it is in their various breeding localities that racial differences 

 of certain species originate, become accentuated and finally remain 

 as a permanent though possibly trifling variation. Now in the 

 spring of 1920, and early summer during the passage of migrants, 

 I managed to bag a Cettia of sorts and a Lusciniola. The comments 

 of the British Museum were that each showed marked differences 

 to the type species one might expect from these localities — but it 

 was too late for me to try for more. The Lusciniola apparently 

 approximated more to L. major than to L. melanopogon which one 

 would have normally expected to find here. Well, it is onl}^ a 

 theory, but it may prove to be correct, that each of these birds 

 I shot was the racial \'ariety of its type species which breeds in the 

 marshy areas of the Palestine coast. 



