THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 297 



need hardly mention how much I regretted this afterwards. The 

 bird passed into the hands of Brandt at Hamburg, and may pro- 

 bably still exist in some collection or other. As in other similar 

 cases, I have never been able to ascertain anything further as to 

 its whereabouts, because Brandt, in order not to betray whence he 

 got so many of his rarities, never told his customers that they 

 came from Heligoland. 



Among some scattered notes, made about that time, I find the 

 following data written down after I had examined the bird in the 

 flesh at Reyrners' : October 4 (1843). A very fine Warbler (Fice- 

 dula) obtained by Reymers. The head of the bird striped like a 

 Reed Warbler ; the stripe on the crown of the head sulphur yellow, 

 the colour very light on the nape of the neck, and very dark on its 

 sides. Upper parts a very beautiful yellowish green, lower parts 

 white. Under tail-coverts of a very beautiful yellow. The wings 

 with a light transverse stripe. The second flight-feather longer 

 than the seventh. 



The bird has never been seen again on the island ; nor have I 

 been able to find, among the many skins of this species which I 

 have since that time had occasion to examine, an example in 

 which the stripe on the crown of the head was of so light a colour, 

 the back so pure yellowish green, or the under tail- coverts so 

 intensely yellow as in the bird which was found here. 



112. Eversmann's Warbler [NORDISCHER LAUBVOGEL]. 

 SYLVIA BOREALIS, Blasius. 1 



Sylvia (Phyllopneuste) borealis. Nauinann, xiii. ; Blasius, Nachtrage, 69. 



Eversmann's Warbler. Dresser, ii. 509. 



Phylloscopus borealis. Seebohm, Cat. of Birds of Brit. Mus., v. 40. 



This bird was first described as new to Europe in the Nauman- 

 nia, and afterwards in the Supplements to Naumann's Birds of 

 Germany, by Blasius after his visit to me in 1858. Until then the 

 example in my collection, which had been killed by one of my 

 young blow-pipe friends on the 6th of October 1854, formed 

 certainly the only instance of the occurrence of this species on 

 European soil. Nor has a second example come into my hands 

 since, although, on the 1st of June 1859, Glaus Aeuckens assured 

 me that on the afternoon of the same day he had seen a bird of 

 this species from two to three paces in front of him, outside of the 

 rampart on the eastern edge of the cliff: in spite of all search, 

 however, the bird could not be discovered again. 



1 Phylloscopus borealis (Blasius). 



