WILLOW WARBLER. 355 



Sicily, Malta, Algeria, Nubia, and Egypt. Mr. Strick- 

 land saw it in Asia Minor, the Zoological Society have 

 received specimens from Trebizond ; and B. H. Hodgson, 

 Esq., includes it among the birds of Nepal. 



In the adult male the beak is brown ; under mandible 

 pale yellow brown at the base ; irides hazel ; a narrow 

 light-coloured streak over the eye ; crown of the head, 

 neck, back, and upper tail-coverts, dull olive-green ; wing 

 and tail-feathers darker brown, the former edged with 

 green ; the tertials to a greater extent than the primaries : 

 the tail slightly notched, the two middle feathers being a 

 trifle shorter than the others; chin, throat, and breast, 

 whitish, but strongly tinged with yellow ; belly almost 

 white ; flanks, and under tail-coverts, like the feathers on 

 the front of the neck, tinged with yellow ; under wing- 

 coverts bright yellow, some of which extend over the 

 outer edge of the wing, from the carpal joint to the bas- 

 tard or spurious wing-feathers ; under surface of wing and 

 tail-feathers greyish brown; legs, toes, and claws, pale 

 brown. 



The whole length of the bird is about five inches ; from 

 the carpal joint to the end of the longest primary, two 

 inches and a half ; the first quill-feather short ; the second 

 equal in length to the sixth, but not so long as the fifth ; 

 the third, fourth, and fifth feathers, nearly equal in length, 

 and the longest in the wing. 



The females scarcely differ from the males either in size 

 or plumage ; and these birds moult as soon as the breed- 

 ing season is over. 



Young birds in their nestling feathers resemble the 

 parent birds in the colour of their plumage : but in the 

 autumn after their first moult the whole of the under 

 surface of the body is more decidedly yellow than the 

 same parts in the parent birds at the same season, and this 



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