360 



BRITISH BIRDS. 



principally in birds shot in the pale breeding-plumagBj but are sometimes 

 sparingly found in the fulvous plumage after the autumn moult. Some 

 ornithologists ascribe the striated underparts to the adult plumage, and 

 the unstriated to birds of the year ; but I have come to the conclusion, 

 after examining a large series of these birds, that the striated plumage is 

 that of summer and the unstriated that of winter, though this appears to 

 be a somewhat exceptional change. Bill dark brown above, pale below; 

 legs, feet, and claws pale horn-colour; irides hazel. This bird may be at 

 once distinguished from its near ally the Sedge-Warbler by the difference 

 in the stripes on the head. In that bird every feather on the head has a 

 dark centre, forming, when the feathers are not ruffled, four or five distinct 

 but narrow dark stripes on the crown between the two pale eye-stripes. 

 In the Aquatic Warbler there are only two dark stripes on the crown, very 

 broad, distinct, and conspicuous. 



