MOUSTACEED WARBLER. 21 



single example obtained on my expedition to Palestine, (P. Z. S., 1864, 

 p. 438; 'Ibis/ p. 77.)" 



Mr. Tristram has been kind enough, to send me for examination 

 the skin above mentioned from Palestine, and one of those shot in 

 India. The latter is not sexed. The former is marked "Male, shot 

 at Gennesaret, March 31, 1864." These birds do not differ in any- 

 material points from the skin sent me by M. Verreaux, and which 

 was figured in the first edition as well as this. The black moustache 

 is rather more pronounced in my figure, and the shoulder being 

 covered with feathers, fails to show the white mark which extends 

 from the carpal joint along the border of the wing for about three 

 quarters of an inch. The Indian bird is also somewhat longer than 

 the other two, and the skin sent to me by M. Verreaux has more 

 rufous in the plumage. 



When I wrote about this bird fifteen years ago, it was a rare 

 Warbler. It is still among the rarest of its genus, which is clearly 

 that which includes our Peed Warblers. 



M. Moquin-Tandon, quoting from M. Lebrun, of Montpellier, says: 

 — "This Warbler builds among the reeds. Its nest is small, in the 

 form of a deep cup, and composed of fibrils and roots and leaves of 

 small grasses, and the interior is lined with horse-hair and wool. It 

 contains four or five eggs, having an azure white ground, with 

 brown spots, larger and more thickly scattered round the larger end. 

 Great diameter fourteen millemetres, small eleven." 



A male in breeding plumage sent me by M. E. Verreaux, has the 

 head dark black; nape, back, and rump rich nut brown, with longi- 

 tudinal rays of black on the "middle of the feathers of the back; 

 throat, crop, and upper part of the belly pure white, slightly shaded 

 about the crop with russet; flanks, lower part of belly, and under 

 tail coverts a lively russet; the lores and a spot behind the eyes, 

 black; superciliary ridge white, becoming broader towards the nape. 

 Wings and tail dark brown, the inner barbs of the primaries bordered 

 with white; beak and legs brown; iris nut brown. First primary 

 very short, the second shorter than the third, which is somewhat 

 shorter than the fourth, the fourth and fifth almost equally long, the 

 latter longest: the exterior web of the fourth and fifth contracted 

 towards the end. 



Degland says that in the autumnal plumage the upper parts are of 

 a tint less dark, with the black lines on the centre of the feathers of 

 the head, and the borders of those on the body redder. The white of 

 the neck, crop, and stomach less pure; the crop and flanks of a 

 darker reddish brown. The young before the first moult are of a 



