MELIZOPHILUS DESERTICOLUS 97 



Iris bright hazel, eyelid reddish-brown, with a circle of minute white 

 feathers round it ; bill brown, becoming yellowish at the base of lower 

 mandible , feet yellowish. 



Total length 4-50 inches, wing 2'10, cuhnen 'lO, tarsus '75. 



Adult female, spring, very like the male, but rather duller and browner 

 in colouring. 



The winter plumage of both sexes is duller and less clear than the 

 summer one. 



Observations. — -Some specimens show no white on the chin. As com- 

 pared with the Dartford Warbler, there is but little difference in the 

 relative length of the wing, but the tail of the present species is shorter 

 than that of M. undatus, and the total length is less. 



This species has no doubt rightly been placed by Mr. Dresser and 

 other ornithologists in the genus Melizophilns. Its long, rounded tail, 

 well shown in the accompanying plate, at once indicates that it belongs 

 to this genus and not to Sylvia, and its habits and mode of nesting are 

 distinctly Melizophiline. The species is, indeed, closely allied to the 

 Dartford Warbler, hut is a rather smaller and more brightly coloured 

 bird. I may here observe that probably some of the notices of the 

 occurrence of the Dartford Warbler in North-west Africa are incorrect, 

 and really apply to the present species. Apparently Loche met with 

 M. deserticolus in the Algerian Sahara in its winter plumage, but did 

 not recognise the species in that dress, or even refer it to M. undatus, 

 for a specimen of M. deserticolus obtained by him at Guerrara, 

 which is preserved in the Milan Museum under the No. 17,574, is 

 labelled as B. subalpina. 



M. deserticolus was first discovered and described under the name 

 Sylvia deserticola by Canon Tristram, who appears to have met with 

 it in the Algerian Sahara in the winter season {Ibis, 1859, p. 58). 

 Several years afterwards Mr. C. Dixon, and later still Dr. Koenig, 

 found the species in its breeding home in the Atlas, and to both these 

 authors we are indebted for some valuable and interesting notes 

 regarding this Warbler, which, so far as is at present known, is 

 pecuhar to the Atlas region. Throughout this region, in Tunisia, 

 Algeria, and Marocco, the species is, however, not uncommon, and may 

 be met with, during the breeding season, at considerable altitudes. 

 Mr. Meade-Waldo mentions having found it abundant in the 

 Maroccan Atlas at elevations up to 9,000 feet above sea-level {Ibis, 

 1903, p. 206). 

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