50 
OLIVE TREE \VARRJJiR. 
coniprcssccl sideways anteriorly, the tip having a tooth-like or 
notched curve. 
Length six inches five lines; wings from carpus to tip three 
inches and two lines; tail two inches and a half; beak from gape 
nine lines and three quarters, breadth of it at angle four lines; 
middle toe five lines, claw of the same two lines and a half; hind 
toe three lines and a quarter, claw of the same three lines. — 
ScHLEGEL. 
This elegant species was discovered by our lamented 
countryman Strickland, in tlie Island of Zante, in 183G, 
and described and figured in Gould’s “Birds of Europe.” 
Count Mlilile, in bis monograph of the European 
SyhiaclcB, has placed this bird, S. elaica, and S. hy- 
polais, (Latham’s Pettychaps,) in a distinct section, 
namely, that of Polyglottce, or Mockers, in consequence 
of the notes of some other birds being discovered in 
their song. Temminck placed S. olivetorum among his 
Riverains, and Keyserling and Blasius, and Schlegel, 
among the Salicaria. But Count Miihle remarks that 
it must be without hesitation placed near S. liypolais, 
the Hippolais polyglottm of Selys-Longchamps, Gerbe, 
and Degland, (Latham’s Pettychaps,) and consequently 
included in this group, forming, with S. icterina, the 
genus Hippolais of Gerbe. 
Sylvia olivetorum has at present only one European 
locality, that of the olive plantations of Greece, where, 
however, it appears to be by no means rare. In the second 
volume of Naumannia, part I, page 77, it is included 
in a list of birds observed in the neighbourhood of 
Tangier’s, and is said to breed there. According to 
Lindermayer it appears in Greece at the end of April 
and the beginning of May, and leaves again early in 
August. It has been conjectured by Baldamus, in Nau- 
mannia, part II for 1853, page 166, that this bird. 
