Birds of East Prussia, 3G1 



ACROCEPHALUS FRUTICOLA. (Xauni.). 



In July 1882 I saw a pair of a species of Acrocephalus in 

 the bushes, intermixed with reeds, grass, Epilobium, and 

 other plants, that bordered a little ditch running through 

 some swampy meadows near Konigsberg. I took them for 

 A. palustris, but something in the song of the male seemed 

 to me peculiar, and therefore I shot it and searched for 

 the nest, but unsuccessfully. Without material to compare, 

 I was convinced that I had a specimen of A. palustris in hand, 

 but afterwards E. von Homeyer, to whom I sent the specimen 

 with other skins, identified it as A. horticola, Xaumann. 

 Homeyer described this very skin in A. & R. Miiller^s ' Thiere 

 d. Heimath,^ ii. p. 585, and I again in ' Mitth. d. ornithol. 

 Vereins in "Wien/ 1887, in " Versuch einer Ornis Preussens,''^ 

 no. 96. When I compared the skin with others in Homeyer's 

 collection, I became convinced that it is a distinct form 

 which has been generally confounded with A. palustris and 

 A. streperus. 



True A. streperus is often observed breeding in gardens 

 and parks in towns, far from any water or reeds ; to these 

 birds the name of A. horticola has been applied, at the same 

 time with the admission that thev differ in nothing but their 

 abode. This is not a distinct form, but merely consists of 

 indinduals that forsake their usual breeding-grounds and 

 frequent localities not usually resorted to by their kindred. 



This I believe to be a misapplication of Naumann's name, 

 and it has probably been the reason why the existence of any 

 other form has been so readily denied. 



The name Sylvia {Calamoherpe) horticola (which I cannot 

 find even as a synonym in the rather exhaustive synonymies 

 in Dresser's 'B. of Europe,' nor in Seebohm's vol. v. of the 

 ' Catalogue of Birds ') was proposed by Xaumann for the 

 two subspecies of C. L. Brehm, which Xaumann believed to 

 be identical, but distinct from both A. streperus and A. 

 palustris. Besides C. horticola, Xaumann described and 

 figured on the same plate (370), in vol. xiii. of his great 

 work, a C. fruticola. 



All modern ornithologists have passed over these forms 



