REED-WARBLER. 367 
ACROCEPHALUS ARUNDINACEUS* (Brisson nec Newton). 
REED-WARBLER. 
(Pxate 10.) 
Ficedula curruca arundinacea, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 878 (1760). 
? Motacilla salicaria, Zinn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 330 (1766). 
Motacilla arundinacea, Lightfoot, Phil. Trans, Ixxv. p. 11 (1785); et auctorum 
plurimorum—Gmelin, (Bechstein), (Wolf), (Leach), (Temminck), (Naumann), 
(Koch), (Jenyns), (Crespon), (Nordmann), (Sundevall), (Salvadori), (Fallon), 
(Bonaparte), (Macgillwray), (Selys-Longchamps), (Schlegel), (Degland), (Gerbe), 
(Loche), (Doderlein), (Droste), (Shelley), (Gould), (Keyserling), (Blasius), 
(Thompson), (Lindermayer), (Fritsch), nec (Gray), (Newton), (Blanford), 
(Gurney), (Harting). 
Sylvia arundinacea (Brvss.), Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 510 (1790). 
Acrocephalus arundinaceus (Briss.), Nawm. Nat, Land- u. Wass.-Vog. nordl. Deutschi. 
Nachtr. Heft iv. p. 202 (1811). 
Muscipeta arundinacea (Briss.), Koch, Syst. baier, Zool. i. p. 165 (1816). 
Sylvia strepera, Vierll. N. Dict. d Hist, Nat. xi. p. 182 (1817). 
Calamoherpe arundinacea (Briss.), Bote, Isis, 1822, p. 552. 
Curruca arundinacea (Briss.), Fleming, Brit. An. p. 69 (1829). 
Curruca fusca, Hempr. et Ehr. Symb. Phys. Aves, fol. cc (1833). 
Salicaria arundinacea (Briss.), Selby, Brit. Orn. i. p. 203 (1838). 
Calamodyta strepera ( Vieill.), Gray, Gen. B. i. p. 172 (1848). 
Sylvia affinis, Hardy, Ann. de ? Assoc. Norm. 1841, fide Degl. Orn. Eur. i. p. 572 
(1849, nec Blyth). 
Calamoherpe obscurocapilla, Dubois, Journ. Orn. 1856, p. 240. 
Calamodyta arundinacea (Briss.), Gray, Hand-l. B. i. p. 208, no. 2940 (1869). 
Salicaria strepera (Vieill.), Harting, Handb. Br. B. p. 14 (1872). 
Acrocephalus streperus (Vieill.), Newton, ed. Yarr. Brit. B. i. p. 369 (1878). 
Salicaria macronyx, Severtz. Turkest. Jevotn. pp. 63, 128 (1873). 
* In order to prevent the possibility of being misunderstood it is necessary for the 
present to add the authority after this name. It was applied to the Great Reed-Warbler 
by Linneeus, Gmelin, Latham, Bechstein, Wolf, Temminck, and Vieillot ; but as all these 
writers thought the Great Reed-Warbler was a Thrush, and placed it in the genus Twrdus, 
no one was likely to confuse the great Twrdus arwndinaceus with the modest Acrocephalus 
arundinaceus. In process of time the earlier ornithologists discovered that they were 
mistaken in supposing the Great Reed-Warbler te be a Thrush; and finding that the 
genus to which it properly belonged already contained an arundinaceus, they most sensibly 
adopted a new and extremely appropriate name for the Thrush-like Reed-Warbler, 
turdoides, as a perpetual memorial of their former blunder. For upwards of a quarter of 
a century all went well, and everybody knew what bird was meant by Sylvia arundinacea, 
Acrocephalus arundinaceus, Calamoherpe arundinacea, or Salicaria arundinacea. In 1841 
the first false step was made by Gray. Led astray by the plausibility of the Stricklandian 
Code, which received the sanction of the British Association the following year, he 
transferred the name of the Reed-Warbler to the Great Reed-Warbler, raking up a long- 
forgotten name for the smaller species. But the pedantry of Gray was not likely to do 
