120 ' BUPPELUS WAUBLEB. 



It appeal's in Greece in May, and leaves in August. It does not 

 seem to be so sprightly or quick in its movements as its congener, 

 the Dartford Warbler. It will sit on the end of a branch with "hanging 

 tail" while guns are fired in the neighbourhood, without being alarmed. 

 Count Miihle adds nothing about its song, and says that its nidification 

 and propagation is one of the points in its natural history still to be 

 elucidated. Thienemann says the nest is cup-shaped, somewhat scantily 

 and loosely built of dry stems of plants, dry leaves, strips of bark 

 and vines, loosely lined inside with softer materials. The ground-colour 

 of the eggs is milk or yellowish white, with delicate pale green and 

 grey green spots, which form a narrow ring near the base. , 



Von Heuglin says of this bird, "Riippell's Warbler is a bird of 

 passage in Egypt, Nubia and Arabia. It is met with in hedges and 

 on tamarisks, reeds, {Arundo donax), isolated thorn-trees, in gardens, 

 hills near water or on fields, meadows, and dry, almost bare, heath 

 land. In lower Egypt I have observed the first bird between the 

 6th. and 10th. of March, but most frequently from the 15tb. to the 25th., 

 generally then in pairs, and sometimes in company with S. suhalpinus. 

 I also observed this bird on islands and the shores of the Red Sea 

 southwards as far as Massowah. In the middle of April all have 

 disapjDcared. They come again, but in more divided parties, in Sep- 

 tember, on their way to the south through North-east Africa. They 

 are rather lively in their movements, but keep during their passage 

 mostly down among reeds and bushes, which they diligently search for 

 insects, and do not willingly quit. Their song I have never heard. 

 Their southern boundary is according to my observation about the 10° 

 N. lat., in the Bocharia deserts, Takah and Samhara. It is, as Newton 

 (Ibis, 1867, p. 62, note) quite rightly observes, a bird which differs from 

 the Warblers generally, almost authorising a generic division. It inhabits 

 the South of Europe, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor." 



Mr. Wyatt (Ibis, 1870,) records the occurrence of this bird at Wady- 

 Hamr in Sinai, where he says it is not uncommon among " retem 

 bushes," and in the same volume, p. 450, the Baron de Selys Long- 

 champs states that M. Salvadori showed him a specimen from Crete, 

 "which resembled S. Rilppellii but seemed to belong to a smaller race." 

 Mr. Chambers shot a specimen in Palestine, which was in some low 

 bushes in the middle of the desert between Arish and Cairo, (Ibis, 1863). 

 And the young and eggs have been captured by Dr. Kriiper near Smyrna 

 (Ibis, 1872,) and "Journal fiir Orn,-" 1871, p. 459. This comprises all 

 the new information I am able to give of this rare bird. 



I take the description from Count Miihle: — The whole upper part 

 of the body is ash blue grey; the wings are brownish black; the greater 



