BIRDS OF GUERNSEY. 47 



cage, for the active little bird will have it in a 

 moment, and after a few sharp snaps of the beak 

 there is quite an end of the bluebottle. Daddy 

 long-legs, too, are favourite morsels, and after a 

 little beating about disappear down the bird's 

 throat legs, wings, and all, without any difficulty. 

 The indigestible parts are afterwards cast up in 

 pellets in the same manner as with Hawks. 



I have never seen the nearly-allied and very similar 

 Marsh Warbler, Acrocephalus palustris, in Guernsey, 

 but, as it may occasionally occur, it may be as well 

 perhaps to point out what little distinction there is 

 between the species. This seems to me to consist 

 chiefly in the difference of colour, the Eeed Warbler, 

 Acrocephalus streperus, at all ages and in all states 

 of plumage, being a warmer, redder brown than 

 Acrocephalus palustris, which is always more or 

 less tinged with green. The legs in A. streperus 

 are always darker than in A. palustris ; the beak 

 also in A. palustris seems rather broader at the 

 base and thicker. This bird also has a whitish 

 streak over the eye, which seems wanting in A. 

 streperus. These distinctions seem to me always to 

 hold, good even in specimens which have been kept 

 some time and have faded to what has now generally 

 got the name of " Museum colour." 



Mr. Dresser, in his ' Birds of Europe,' points 

 out another distinction which no doubt is a good 

 one in adult birds with their quills fully grown, but 



