CHIFFCHA1T. 441 



winter, a not inconsiderable number remain throughout 

 that season in the more sheltered parts of Spain, Italy and 

 Greece, with their adjacent islands. 



The adult male, in spring, has the bill dark brown with 

 lighter edges : the hides brown : lores and upper parts of 

 the ear-coverts, dusky ; over the eye a light yellowish streak 

 passing into white behind the ear-coverts ; top of the head, 

 neck, back and upper tail-coverts, dull olive-green tinged 

 with ochre ; wing- and tail-quills, dull slate-brown edged with 

 olive-green ; chin, throat, breast, belly and lower tail-coverts, 

 dull white, tinged with ochreous-yellow ; lower wing-coverts 

 yellow, particularly along the outer edge of the wing ; wings 

 and tail beneath, brownish-grey : legs, toes, and claws, dark 

 brown, almost black. 



The whole length is about four inches and three-quarters. 

 From the carpus to the tip of the wing, two inches and 

 three-eighths : the first primary comparatively long ; the 

 second about equal to the seventh, but shorter than any of 

 the intermediate feathers ; the third, fourth and fifth nearly 

 equal in length ; but all these measurements and propor- 

 tions are subject to variation. 



The plumage is similar in the two sexes. The young, 

 as in the Willow- Wren, are more tinged with green and 

 yellow than the adults, and the superciliary streak is generally 

 less distant. 



It should be borne in mind, that neither of the specific 

 names " rufa " and " hippolais," usually applied to this 

 species can by rule be retained for it. The Warbler on 

 which the former was first conferred, by Boddaert in 1783, 

 is the Greater Whitethroat as already mentioned (page 406) ; 

 and the Motacilla ru/a of Gmelin, in 1788, is founded upon 

 the " Fauvette rousse" of Brisson (Orn. iii. p. 387), which, 

 if not the bird subsequently described by La Marmora as 

 Sylvia cettii, is unknown. Certainly it is not the present 

 species, though many writers, misled by Temminck, have 

 erroneously imagined that Latham thought it was. What the 

 M. hippolais (rightly liypolais) of Linnaeus is has before been 

 stated (page 360). Bechstein, who, in the discriminative 



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