CHIFF CHAFF. 363 



Mr. Blyth has found this species in the neighbourhood 

 of Calcutta. 



This little bird has the beak shorter and narrower at 

 the base than that of the Willow Warbler; the legs 

 very dark brown, and the general tone of the colour of 

 the plumage has more of brown and less of green than 

 that bird ; it is on this latter account, probably, that the 

 Chiff Chaff has also been called the Lesser Pettychaps, 

 its plumage bearing some resemblance to the brown colour 

 of that of the Garden Warbler, which has been fre- 

 quently called the Greater Pettychaps as shown by the 

 synonymes. 



The adult male has the beak dark brown ; the irides 

 brown ; over the eye a light-coloured streak, sometimes 

 rather obscure; the head, neck, back, wings, and tail- 

 feathers, nearly a uniform ash -brown ; the quill -feathers 

 rather darker than the other parts, the edges of the ter- 

 tials rather lighter; the chin, throat, breast, belly, and 

 under tail-coverts, dull brownish white, tinged with yel- 

 low ; under wing-coverts primrose-yellow ; under surface 

 of wing and tail-feathers grey ; legs, toes, and claws, dark 

 brown, almost black. 



The whole length of the bird is about four inches and 

 three quarters. From the carpus to the end of the longest 

 primary, two inches and thr ee -eighths : the first feather 

 short ; the second about as long as the seventh, and neither 

 of them so long as the fifth or sixth ; the third and fourth 

 nearly equal in length, and the longest in the wing. 



The plumage is similar in the two sexes. Young birds, 

 like the young of the Willow Warbler, are more tinted 

 with green and yellow than very adult birds. 



It should be borne in mind, that the British bird to 

 which the term hippolais has usually been attached in the 

 works of British Naturalists, is not the hippolais of con- 



