MABMOBA'8 WABBLEB. 139 



the density and vastness of the undercover; but on the 19th. of May 

 I came upon a brood of five or six young birds just able to fly, 

 from which I secured some interesting specimens. They differ from 

 the old ones in being a much paler brown all over, their irides and 

 legs the same colour: in adult birds the irides are a yellow brown, 

 the legs a light orange yellow. S. sarda can always be easily dis- 

 tinguished, even when flying, from all other Warblers by its uniform 

 dark dusky colour, and more especially from C. tnelanocephalus , (with 

 which Dr. Bree thinks it may be confounded,) not only by its smaller 

 size, but by the almost entire absence of the white edgings on the 

 outer tail feathers, which the latter shows very conspicuously when 

 flying. Dr. Salvadori, in his late work on the birds of Italy, mentions 

 Corsica and Sicily as localities where this bird is found." 



The following are Salvadori's remarks in the "Fauna d'ltalia:" — 

 ''Common and stationary in Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily. According 

 to Calvi and Durazzo, a few individuals are sometimes taken in 

 Liguria, which appears, however, doubtful, since Negri during very 

 many years never met with it in the neighbourhood of Geneva. Also 

 the Marquis Giacomo Doria wrote to me that he has the conviction, 

 if not the certainty, that this species must not be retained among 

 Ligurian birds. This is the bird which is more commonly found in 

 Sardinia. It inhabits the mountains as frequently as the plains,- but 

 always where the ground is covered with the Cistas monsteliensis and 

 Erica. It is especially found on the hills covered with those plants. 

 I have never found it in the large oak plantations. When hidden 

 among the bushes, it jumps from bush to bush, and runs along the 

 ground, so that it is difficult to see, as the cisti are close together. 

 Sometimes one is seen rising up into the air three or four yards 

 from the earth, and then sinking down to hide itself among the 

 plants, or to rest for a minute upon some stem a little higher than 

 the others, from which, especially in spring, its graceful song may 

 be heard. In the winter, on the contrary, when it remains hidden 

 among the bushes, it may be known by a cry, repeated at short 

 intervals, and which may be expressed by the syllables cie-cie, pro- 

 nounced with the e long. When it remains hidden in a thick bush, 

 it is very difficult to make it fly, and when it does so, it goes off 

 with great rapidity and to a considerable distance. It nests in the 

 bushes. The nest resembles that of the Dartford Warbler. The eggs, 

 four or five in number, are whitish, with grey or rosy spots, rather 

 closer near the larger end. Doderlin says that this species arrives 

 in Sicily in April and May, and does not go back in the autumn. 

 He found an individual in November, and I believe that it is stationary 

 in Sicily as in Sardinia." 



