338 NOTES ON SOME BURMESE BIRDS. 



It arrives in great numbers about the 15th of November and 

 stays in undiminished quantities till the 31st May at the least. 

 On its first arrival it affects bamboo bushes, thick clumps of 

 grass and patches of weeds ; but as the season progresses, and 

 the Peepul trees come out into leaf, their haunts become chiefly 

 arboreal. It is very strange that a Reed Warbler should take 

 to trees at all, but it does in this instance; and I have shot, 

 and can always obtain, more specimens in Peepul trees at a 

 height of 30 or 40 feet from the ground than in other locali- 

 ties. Its motions are slow and awkward, and it keeps chiefly 

 to the thicker secondary branches. Its note is very harsh and 

 it is uttered very often, betraying the presence of the bird 

 at once. 



There appears to be but one moult a year, which takes place 

 in April and May. In these two months specimens are hardly 

 worth preserving. Up to the day of departure the generative 

 organs of both sexes are extremely small. On their arrival 

 here in November the plumage is very perfect. 



The food consists entirely of insects and caterpillars. From 

 their frequentiug Peepul trees, I thought at one time that they 

 might occasionally eat a fig, but 1 do not now think they ever 

 do so. Certainly I have never found any fruit in the stomach. 



The sexes do not differ either in size or in plumage. The 

 following are the extreme measurements of numerous birds :— 

 Length, 7*2 to 8'05 ; expanse, 9"4 to 107 ; tail from vent, 

 2-5 to 3-1; wing, 3-15 to 3-36; tarsus, 1*12 to 1-21; bill, 

 from gape to tip, '97 to 1*03 ; the closed wings fall short 

 of the tail by about 20; the toes reach to a little beyond 

 the tip of the tail ; the under tail-coverts fall short of the tip 

 of the tail by *95 ; the difference between the longest and 

 shortest rectrix is "65 ; the third . primary is the longest ; the 

 fourth is '03 ; the fifth '13 ; the second -12 ; and the first, which 

 is very minute, as minute indeed as in A. brunnescens, 1*95 

 shorter than the longest. 



The inside of the mouth, throughout the seven months it 

 stays with us, is a rich salmon color ; the gape, the lower 

 mandible and the edges of the upper, pale flesh color ; the 

 remainder of the upper mandible, dark brown ; the ej'elids are 

 clear plumbeous ; the iris, rich olive brown ; the legs and toes, 

 leaden blue ; the under part of the latter, pale yellowish ; the 

 claws, pale horn color. 



The following description is taken from a very perfect spe- 

 cimen shot in November. The sexes, as already stated, do not 

 differ : — 



Four stiff black bristles, about '3 long, spring from either 

 side the gape, and half a dozen soft, hair-like, webless feathers 

 spring from the nape and exceed the ordinary feathers of the 



