REED-WARBLER. 367 



ACROCEPHALUS ARUNDINACEUS * {Brisson nee Newton) . 

 REED-WARBLER. 



(Plate 10.) 



Ficedula curruca arundinacea, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 378 (1760). 

 ? Motacilla salicaria, Zinn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 330 (1766). 



Motacilla arundinacea, Liglitfoot, Phil. Trans, Ixxv. p. 11 (1785); et auctorum 

 plurimorum — Gmelin, (Bechstein), (Wolf), (Leach), {Temminch), (Naumann), 

 (Koch), (Jeny^is), (Crespon), (Nordmann) , (Sundevall), (Sahadori), {Fallon), 

 (Bonaparte), (Macgillkray), (Selya-Longchainps), (Schlegel), (Degland), (Oerhe), 

 (Loche), (Doderlem), (Droste), (Shelley), (Gould), (Keyserling), (Blasius), 

 (Thompson), (Lindermayer), (Fritsch), nee (Gray), (Newton), (Blanford), 

 (Gurney), (Harting). 



Sylvia arundinacea (Briss.), Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 510 (1790). 



Acrocephalus arundinaceus (Briss.), Naum. Nat. Land- u. Wass.- Vog. niirdl. Deutschl. 

 Nachtr. Heft iv. p. 202 (1811). 



Muscipeta arundinacea (Briss.), Koch, Syst. baier. Zool. i. p. 165 (1816). 



Sylvia strepera, Tieill. N. Bid. d'Hist. Nat. xi. p. 182 (1817). 



Calamolierpe arundinacea (Briss.), Biiie, Isis, 1822, p. 552. 



Curruca arundinacea (Briss.), Fleming, Brit. An. p. 69 (1829). 



Ourruoa fusca, Hempr. et Ehr. Symh. Phys^. Aves, fol. cc (1833). 



Salicaria arundinacea (Briss.), Selby, Brit. Orn. i. p. 203 (1833). 



Calamodyta strepera (Vieill.), Gray, Gen. B. i. p. 172 (1848). 



Sylvia affinis, Hardy, Ann. de V Assoc. Norm. 1841, fide Degl. Orn. Eur. i. p. 572 

 (1849, nee Blyth). 



Calamoherpe obscurocapilla, Dubois, Journ. Orn, 1866, p. 240. 



Calamodyta arundinacea (Briss.), Gray, Hand-l. B. i. p. 208, no. 2940 (1869). 



Salicaria strepera (Vieill.), Harting, Handb. Br. i?. p. 14 (1872). 



Acrocephalus streperus (Vieill.), Nervton, ed. Yarr. Brit. B. i. p. 369 (1873). 



Salicaria maoronyx, Secertz. Turkest, Jevotn, pp. 63, 128 (1873). 



* In order to prevent the possibility of being misunderstood it is necessary for tbe 

 present to add tbe authority after this name. It was applied to the Great Reed- Warbler 

 by Linnaeus, Gmelin, Latham, Bechatein, Wolf, Temminck, and Vieillot ; but as all these 

 writers thought the Great Reed- Warbler was a Thrush, and placed it in the genus Turdus, 

 no one was likely to confuse the great Turdus arundinaceus with the modest Acrocephalus 

 arundinaceus. In process of time the earlier ornithologists discovered that they were 

 mistaken in supposing the Great Reed- Warbler to be a Thrush ; and finding that the 

 eenus to which it properly belonged abeady contained an arundinaceus, they most sensibly 

 adopted a new and extremely appropriate name for the Thrush-like Reed-Warbler, 

 turdoides, as a perpetual memorial of their former blunder. For upwards of a quarter of 

 a century all went well, and everybody knew what bird was meant by Sylvia arundinacea, 

 Acrocephalus arundinaceus, Calamoherpe arundinacea, or Salicaria arundinacea. In 1841 

 the first false step was made by Gray. Led astray by the plausibility of the Stricklandian 

 Code which received the sanction of the British Association the foUovWng year, he 

 transferred the name of the Reed-Warbler to the Great Reed- Warbler, raking up a long- 

 forgotten name for the smaller species. But the pedantry of Gray was not hkely to do 



