REED-WARBLER. 367 



ACROCEPHALUS ARUNDINACEUS * (Brisson nee Newton) . 



REED-WARBLER. 



(PLATE 10.) 



Ficedula curruca arundinacea, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 378 (1760). . 



~ Motacilla salicaria, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 330 (1766). 



Motacilla arundinacea, Liyhtfoot, Phil, Trans. Ixxv. p. 11 (1785); et auctorum 

 plurimorum Gmelin, (Bechstein), (Wolf), (Leach), (Temminck), (Naumann), 

 (Koch), (Jenyns), (Crespon), (Nordmann), (Sundevall), (Salvadon), (Fallori), 

 (Bonaparte), (Macgillivray), (Selys-Longchamps), (ScMegel), (Degland), (Gerbe), 

 (Loche), (Doderlein), (Droste), (Shelley), (Gould), (Keyserling), (Blasius), 

 (Thompson), (Lindermayer), (Fritsch), nee (Gray), (Newton), (Blanford), 

 (Gurney), (Hurting). 



Sylvia ariindinacea (Briss.), Lath. 2nd. Orn. ii. p. 510 (1790). 



Acrocephalus arundinaceus (Briss.), Naum. Nat. Land- u. Wass.-Vb'g. nordl. Deutschl. 

 Nachtr. Heft iv. p. 202 (1811). 



Muscipeta arundinacea (Briss.), Koch, Syst. baier. Zool. i. p. 165 (1816). 



Sylvia strepera, Vieill X. Diet. d"Hist. Nat. xi. p. 182 (1817). 



Calamoherpe arundinacea (Briss.), Bute, Isis, 1822, p. 552. 



Curruca arundinacea (Briss.), Fleming, Brit. An. p. 69 (1829). 



Curruca fusca, Hempr. et Ehr. Symb. Phys. Aves, fol. cc (1833). 



Salicaria arundinacea (Briss.), Selby, Brit. Orn. i. p. 203 (1833). 



Calamodyta strepera (Vieill.), Gray, Gen. B. i. p. 172 (1848). 



Sylvia affmis, Hardy, Ann. de FAssoc. Norm. 1841, fide Degl. Orn. Eur. i. p. 572 

 (1849, nee Blyth). 



Calamoherpe obscurocapilla, Dubois, Journ. Orn. 1S56, p. 240. 



Calamodyta arundinacea (Briss.), Gray, Hand-l B. i. p. 208, no. 2940 (1869). 



Salicaria strepera ( Vieill.), Harting, Handb. Br. B. p. 14 (1872). 



Acrocephalus streperus ( Vieill.), Newton, ed. Yarr. Brit. B. i. p. 369 (1873). 



Salicaria inacrouyx, Severtz. Turkest. Jevotn. pp. 63, 128 (1873). 



* In order to prevent the possibility of being misunderstood it is necessary for the 

 present to add the authority after this name. It was applied to the Great Reed- Warbler 

 by Linnaeus, Gmelin, Latham, Bechstein, Wolf, Temminck, and Vieillot ; but as all these 

 -writers thought the Great Reed- Warbler was a Thrush, and placed it in the genus Turdus, 

 no one was likely to confuse the great Turdus arundinaceus with the modest Acrocephalus 

 arundinaceus. In process of time the earlier ornithologists discovered that they were 

 mistaken in supposing the Great Reed- Warbler tc be a Thrush; and finding that the 

 genus to which it properly belonged already contained an arundinaceus, they most sensibly 

 adopted a new and extremely appropriate name for the Thrush-like Reed- Warbler, 

 turdoides, as a perpetual memorial of their former blunder. For upwards of a quarter of 

 a century all went well, and everybody knew what bird was meant by Sylvia arundinacea, 

 Acrocephalus arundinaceus, Calamoherpe arundinacea, or Salicaria arundinacea. In 1841 

 the first false afep was made by Gray. Led astray by the plausibility of the Stricklandian 

 Code, which received the sanction of the British Association the following year, he 

 transferred the name of the Reed- Warbler to the Great Reed- Warbler, raking up a long- 

 forgotten name for the smaller species. But the pedantry of Gray was not likely to do 



