212 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



tinged with yellow, extending from the base of the bill to just 

 behind the eye ; sides of face dingy olive, with a dusky line 

 through the eye ; under surface of body dingy olive-yellow, 

 whiter on the centre of the breast, abdomen, and under tail- 

 coverts, the latter washed with olive-yellow; under wing-coverts 

 and axillaries rather brighter greenish-yellow ; quills dusky 

 below, ashy-whitish along the edge of the inner webs ; bill dark 

 brown, the lower mandible slightly paler; feet and claws dark 

 brown, almost black ; iris hazel. Total length, 4-6 inches ; 

 culmen, 0*5 ; wing, 28 ; tail, 1*9 ; tarsus, o'8. 



Adult Female. Similar to the male. Total length, 4*5 inches ; 

 wing, 2-4. 



Autumn Plumage Much more fulvescent in tint than in sum- 

 mer, the eyebrow being fulvous, and the throat, chest, and 

 sides of the body also of this colour, with a few yellow streaks 

 on the throat and breast. 



Young. -Similar to the adults, but entirely olive-yellow under- 

 neath, the under wing-coverts and axillaries, and the edge of 

 the wings, being brighter yellow. 



NOTE. The Chiffchaff can be easily recognised by the shape of the 

 wing, which is much more rounded than in the Willow-Warbler or Wood- 

 Warbler, and has the second primary, i.e., the first long primary i" the 

 wing, about equal in length to the sixth. The general colour is more 

 dingy, and the size is rather smaller than that of the Willow-Warbler. 

 Both in life and in a prepared skin the feet are much darker, appearing 

 black in the skin of a Chiffchaff, and brown in a Willow-Warbler. This 

 character and that of the more rounded wing of the Chiffchaff render the 

 two birds easily recognisable one from the other. 



Range in Great Britain. An early summer visitor, arriving in 

 the middle of March, and leaving in September and October. 

 Chiffchaffs occasionally remain in England during the winter, 

 and Mr. Robert Read has presented to the British Museum 

 a specimen obtained by him in Somersetshire on the 271)1 of 

 December, 1892. Mr. Howard Saunders says that the bird 

 winters mostly in the south-western counties, when it elects to 

 stay in England during the cold \\ eather. In all parts of Great 

 Britain it is a rarer bird than the Willow- Warbler, but is com- 

 moner in some districts than others, being rare or local in Nor- 

 folk, Lancashire, and in the north-west of Yorkshire, but again 

 more plentiful in the northern counties of England, and the 



