RUFOUS WARBLER. 421 
Hypolais opaca and the Wren-like Cisticola were to be seen, but no 
Rufous Warblers. The date-palms are chiefly enclosed in mud walls at 
this oasis ; and the ground between the trees is sown with barley: these 
are the Arab gardens; and in them we first met with the bird. As we 
wandered between the narrow lanes, a strange bird would now and then be 
seen on the tops of these mud walls, in amongst the thorns placed on the 
top to keep them from falling, spreading its fan-like tail for a moment, and 
then disappearing again. It was always very shy and wary, and defied all 
our efforts to shoot it. We also met with it in the large Government 
garden here, now left neglected and all run wild—a perfect paradise for 
birds, where the palm-trees glistened with the refulgent dress of the Bee- 
eater and the gaudy Golden Oriole. Amongst the bushes it was just as 
shy and wary as ever: all we got was a hasty glimpse of its rich chestnut 
plumage, and the conspicuous markings of its tail as, like a fan, it was 
wafted to and fro just as the bird was about to take wing. We did not 
succeed in obtaining a single specimen in Biskra; but when we reached 
the picturesque oasis of El] Kantara, on our return journey, I was fortunate 
enough to shoot a pair. Here, as at Biskra, we repeatedly saw them on 
the walls of the Arab gardens. I was walking along the high road, trying 
to get a few specimens of the trustful and pretty Sahara Bunting, 
when, in a small prickly-pear garden, I noticed a pair of Rufous Warblers 
hopping from under the branches, just as a Robin or a Thrush would do. 
They hopped over the parched and arid ground, ever and anon spreading 
out their tails, and chasing each other through the cactus. They seemed 
not to mind my presence at all; they were too engrossed with their 
courtship ; and even the discharge of my gun only caused the surviving 
bird to hide itself for a moment under the branches. I never expected to 
meet with a Warbler in such dry arid situations as the present species 
inhabits ; but in all its actions, nevertheless, it is an undoubted Sylvia.” 
Writing on the nesting-habits of the Rufous Warbler in Algeria, Salvin 
states (Ibis, 1859, p. 809) :— Near Ain Djendeli I used frequently to 
notice the present species about the trees that overhang the dry stony 
watercourses that run from the hills into the plain beneath. We never 
found a nest, however, in one of the above-mentioned places ; and it 
would seem that the bird prefers a moister soil for its breeding-haunts, 
such as is afforded by the lowlands near lake Djendeli, where the tamarisk- 
trees grow on the banks of the Chemora and the small Ain or spring. 
The nest we found usually placed conspicuously in the fork or on a branch 
of one of these trees, and with apparently no attempt at concealment. 
The heights at which the structure is placed vary from one to six feet from 
the ground. In one instance I found a nest among the roots of a tree in 
a bank-side, in a place where one would have expected in England to have 
found the nest of a Robin. The materials employed are the dead shoots 
