IDENTIFICATION. 47 



Open his wing and look at his armpits. Are his axillary feathers 

 chequered ? No. Then he is no Geocichla ; he is not a White's 

 Thrush nor a Siberian Thrush, and he would be a rarity if he were. 

 Are his axillaries black ? No. Then he is not a Blackbird or a Ring 

 Ouzel. Perhaps they are yellow, and he has an unspotted breast ; if 

 so, his genus is either Phylloscopus or Hypolais; Phylloscopus if his 

 legs are brown, Hypolais if his legs are blue. But his axillaries are 

 not yellow and his breast is not unspotted. Are his axillaries buff? 

 Has he a buff breast, a reddish brown back, a reddish brown tail ; is 

 he, in short, a Nightingale? No. He is not a Nightingale ; and he 

 is thus unclaimed by five genera. 



Now let us try him in another way. Is his chin red ; and is his lower 

 breast white ? No. He is not a Robin Redbreast. Is his chin 

 chestnut and his lower breast chestnut ? No. He is not a Dartford 

 Warbler. Two more genera are eliminated. The next we might 

 have started with. Has he a bright yellow crest ? No. He is not a 

 Gold-crest or a Fire-ciest ; and no one would have supposed so from 

 his size. 



Perhaps he is a Rufous Warbler? If so his head and back would 

 be chestnut, his breast buff ; his tail rounded and long, and tipped 

 with white ; and he would have been the fourth specimen on record. 

 Evidently he is not A'edon. Has he a white rump, black legs, 

 unnotched bill ? Is he a Saxicola, in fact ? No. He is not a 

 Wheatear. Has he a whitish rump, black legs, a notched bill, and a 

 short square tail ; is he a Pratincola f No. He is neither a Stone- 

 chat nor a Whinchat. Has he a bright blue throat ? No. He is not 

 a Cyanecula. Has he a bluish grey head, a black bill, and a chestnut 

 breast ? No. There was only one bird ever seen like that in this 

 country. He is not a Monticola; and so far we have tried him in 

 vain for 13 genera, and we have only five to run him down in. 



Has he a black throat and a red tail, with black or brown on its 

 two middle feathers ; is he a Ruticilla ? No. He is not one of the 

 Redstarts. Is his bill without rictal bristles, are his axillaries brown, 

 and is his tail pointed and shorter than the wing? No. That com- 

 bination will not suit him. He is not a Locustelta. Are his axillaries 

 whitish, is his bill large in proportion to his head, and depressed and 

 broad at the base, and is his tail short and rather round ? No. 

 That combination will not do. We cannot get rid of him in 

 Acrocephalus. But we have only two left ! 



How long is he ? Over seven inches^over eight really. Then he 

 cannot belong to Sylvia, he must belong to Tardus. That is one 

 way out of the difficulty, certainly. But suppose he were an under- 

 sized specimen ? 



Then, if he were assignable to Sylvia, his bill would be faintly 

 notched, and very short and stout, but not broad at the base, his 

 breast would be plain or barred, his wings would be moderate in size, 

 his first primary would be noticeably less than half the length of the 

 second, and his tail would be ashy or brown and white. And as our 

 specimen does not meet these requirements, all we can say is that 

 his genus must be Turdus. And if we look on pages 73 and 74, we 

 can try him again through the tabular analysis of the Turdina. 



But to what species of Turdus does he belong ? Let us analyse 

 the species and tabulate them, as we shall have to tabulate all the 



