SAVI'S WARBLER. .347 



South Russia, it has been found. It appears to be equally common in 

 suitable localities in North Africa, and has been obtained in Palestine ; 

 but so far as is known it is entirely absent from North Europe, and also, 

 strange to say, from Germany, Turkey, Greece, Asia Minor, and the 

 Caucasus. In the northern portion of its range it is strictly a migratory 

 bird ; but it is said to remain during the winter in the delta of the Rhone, 

 and a considerable number undoubtedly remain in North Africa to breed. 

 In the delta of the Volga, the Kirghis steppes, Western Turkestan, and 

 Persia examples of Savi's Warbler have been obtained ; but the few that I 

 have seen in the collections of Hencke and Severtzow, instead of being of 

 a rich russet-brown on the upper parts (the colour of ground coffee) , were 

 of a more pinky earth-brown (the colour of chocolat-au-lait) . Spanish 

 examples in nestling plumage of Savi's Warbler are similar in colour, but 

 somewhat darker. Severtzow described the Turkestan birds as new, under 

 the name of Cettia fusca (not Cettia fulva, as I erroneously stated in my 

 paper on the Birds of Astrakhan in ' The Ibis ' for 1882, p. 213) ; but he 

 afterwards identified them with Savi's Warbler. It will be an interesting 

 problem for future travellers to solve, whether young birds retain the 

 colour of the nestling plumage beyond their first spring moult until their 

 first autumn moult, and whether the examples hitherto obtained of this 

 species east of the Black Sea have only been birds of the year, or whether 

 these forms are specifically or subspecifically distinct. It is possible that 

 Savi's Warbler originally came from Turkestan, and originally had the 

 colour which the Turkestan birds may still retain, and that a long resi- 

 dence in Europe, where the rainfall is so much greater, has directly 

 or indirectly caused the colour of adult birds to become so much more 

 russet, the original colour being still retained in the young in first 

 plumage. 



Savi's Warbler appears to bear the same relation to the Grasshopper 

 Warbler that the Reed-Warbler does to the Sedge- Warbler. In each case 

 the uniformly coloured bird is almost entirely confined to the uniformly 

 coloured reeds, whilst the spotted bird principally frequents the rank 

 herbage, whose foliage is much more variegated. If there is any mutual 

 relationship between these facts, it would be difficult to say which is 

 cause and which is effect. The plain-backed birds may have been exter- 

 minated from the variegated swamps, because the spotted plumage of the 

 allied species gave them a slight advantage in the struggle for existence ; 

 or all four species may originally have had spotted backs, but those which 

 lived in the reeds may gradually have lost their spots to accommodate 

 themselves to their surroundings. 



Savi's Warbler arrives at the reed-beds of Galicia during the first week 

 in May ; but in the south of Spain it must arrive much earlier, since 

 Col. Irby obtained eggs in Andalusia on the 4th of May. He states. 



