YELLOW-BROWED WILLOW-WREN. AAD 
were in sight. This went on for about half an hour, when we came to the 
conclusion that the nest must be at the foot of the birch tree, and com- 
menced a second search. In less than five minutes I found the nest, with 
six eggs. It was built in a slight tuft of grass, moss, and bilberries, semi- 
domed, exactly like the nest of our Willow-Warblers. It was composed 
of dry grass and moss, and lined with reindeer-hair. The eggs are pure 
white in ground-colour, spotted very thickly at the large end, in the form 
of an irregular zone, with reddish brown, and more sparingly on the 
remainder of the surface; some of the spots are underlying and paler, 
but not grey, and on one or two of the eggs they are confluent. They 
measure ‘6 inch in length and “45 inch in breadth. The markings are 
well defined, like those on the eggs of the Chiffchaff; but the colour is 
decidedly more like that of the Willow-Warbler’s; but they approach 
much more closely the eggs of the Indian Willow-Warbler, P. humii, both 
in colour and size. 
On account of the great interest attaching to the Yellow-browed Willow- 
Warbler, I append the following detailed description of its several plumages. 
The adult bird in spring plumage has the general colour of the upper parts 
olive-green, yellower on the rump and upper tail-coverts; a well-defined 
narrow greenish-yellow eye-stripe extends from the base of the bill to the 
nape; an irregular and very obscure greenish-yellow mesial line extends 
from the forehead to the nape ; the feathers before the eye and behind the 
eye to the nape and the crown, and the nape between the mesial line and 
each eye-stripe, dark olive-green, a few still darker feathers emphasizing the 
eye-stripe on the nape; wing-coverts brown, the lesser wing-coverts with 
broad olive-green margins, the median and greater wing-coverts with 
broad well-defined greenish-yellow tips, forming two conspicuous bars 
across each wing; quills brown, all the secondaries and four or five of the 
primaries with conspicuous well-defined yellowish-white tips ; outside webs 
of the quills margined with yellowish green, fading into yellowish white, 
and becoming broad and conspicuous on the terminal half of the innermost 
secondaries ; quills emarginated as far as the sixth; tail-feathers brown, 
the outside webs edged with yellowish green, and the inside webs with a 
narrow greyish-white margin. The general colour of the underparts 1s 
white, suffused all over with traces of yellowish green; axillaries yellow ; 
under wing-coverts and thighs greyish yellow. Bill dark brown, paler at 
the base of the under mandible ; legs, feet, and claws brown; irides 
hazel. 
In summer plumage nearly all the yellow and green with which both the 
upper and underparts were suffused has been lost by abrasion ; the upper 
parts have faded into a grey-olive, traces only of the yellowish green 
remaining on the rump, upper tail-coverts, and the edges of the wing- and 
tail-feathers ; all trace of yellow has gone from the eye-stripe and wing- 
VOL. I. “G 
