RUFOUS WARBLER. 421 



Hypolais opaca and the Wren-like Cisticola were to be seenj but no 

 Rufous Warblers. The date-palms are chiefly enclosed in mud walls at 

 this oasis ; and the ground between the trees is sown with barley : these 

 are the Arab gardens; and in them we first met with the bird. As we 

 wandered between the narrow lanes, a strange bird would now and then be 

 seen on the tops of these mud walls^ in amongst the thorns placed on the 

 top to keep them from falling, spreading its fan-like tail for a moment, and 

 then disappearing again. It was always very shy and wary, and defied all 

 our efforts to shoot it. We also met with it in the large Government 

 garden here, now left neglected and all run wild — a perfect paradise for 

 birds, where the palm-trees glistened with the refulgent dress of the Bee- 

 eater and the gaudy Golden Oriole. Amongst the bushes it was just as 

 shy and wary as ever : all we got was a hasty glimpse of its rich chestnut 

 plumage, and the conspicuous markings of its tail as, like a fan^ it was 

 wafted to and fro just as the bird was about to take wing. We did not 

 succeed in obtaining a single specimen in Biskra ; but when we reached 

 the picturesque oasis of El Kantara, on our return journey, I was fortunate 

 enough to shoot a pair. Here, as at Biskra, we repeatedly saw them on 

 the walls of the Arab gardens. I was walking along the high road, trying 

 to get a few siDCcimens of the trustful and pretty Sahara Bunting, 

 when, in a small priekly-pear garden, I noticed a pair of Rufous Warblers 

 hopping from under the branches, just as a Robin or a Thrush would do. 

 They hopped over the parched and arid ground, ever and anon spreading 

 out their tails, and chasing each other through the cactus. They seemed 

 not to mind my presence at all ; they were too engrossed with their 

 courtship ; and even the discharge of my gun only caused the surviving 

 bird to hide itself for a moment under the branches. I never expected to 

 meet with a Warbler in such dry arid situations as the present species 

 inhabits ; but in all its actions, nevertheless, it is an undoubted Sylvia." 



Writing on the nesting-habits of the Rufous Warbler in Algeria, Salvin 

 states (Ibis, 1859, p. 309) : — "Near Ain Djendeli I used frequently to 

 notice the present species about the trees that overhang the dry stony 

 watercourses that run from the hills into the plain beneath. We never 

 found a nest, however, in one of the above-mentioned places ; and it 

 would seem that the bird prefers a moister soil for its breeding-haunts, 

 such as is afforded by the lowlands near lake Djendeli, where the tamarisk- 

 trees grow on the banks of the Chemora and the small Am or spring. 

 The nest we found usually placed conspicuously in the fork or on a branch 

 of one of these trees, and with apparently no attempt at concealment. 

 The heights at which the structure is placed vai-y from one to six feet from 

 the ground. In one instance I found a nest among the roots of a tree in 

 a bank-side, in a place where one would have expected in England to have 

 found the nest of a Robin. The materials employed are the dead shoots 



