BOOTED REED WARBLER. 
77 
small, tlie third double the length of the first. All the tail 
feathers rounded, the middle one somewhat shortened, and edged 
with pale grey brown. Length four inches and two fifths; wings 
two inches and four lines; tail two inches; tarsi nine lines and a 
half; middle toe five lines. 
There has been much written about this little bird, 
whose history appears to be as follows. — Pallas, in his 
‘^Zoography of Asiatic Pussia,” describes a small Peed 
"Warbler, under the designation of Motacilla salicaria; 
the Warblers in those days being mixed up with the 
Wagtails. In the history of Eversmann’s travels to 
Bucharest, Lichtenstein, the German naturalist, has 
noticed a bird, now in the Berlin Museum, labelled 
'^‘Sylvia caligata, Siberia, Eversmann,” in the following 
words: — new species, and distinct from all our 
European Peed Warblers, which Pallas, under the 
mistaken name of Motacilla salicaria, very fully and 
correctly described.” 
It resembles Sylvia arundinacea , Latham, in its 
youthful plumage, but it may be distinguished as follows: 
— ‘‘The length from the tip of the beak to the rump 
is only two inches and five lines; the tail is about two 
inches one line; the beak is much smaller, only five 
lines and a half long. The tarsus is nine lines; the 
superciliary streak not clearly developed, and it is 
booted to the root of the toes with scales. The con- 
struction of the wing is also different: the second 
primary is of the same length as the sixth, and the 
third, fourth, and fifth are the longest, whilst in 
arundinacea the fifth is shorter than the second; also 
the fourth, fifth, and sixth are contracted in the outer 
web. The legs are of a bright colour, and the first 
year’s plumage of arundinacea is much paler.” 
