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in summer on the low wooded scrubby hills and along river-banks. They seem to be more 

 partial to trees than most of the other small Warblers, and are extremely shy and difficult to 

 see. I saw young birds flying on the 12th of May." 



Lord Lilford met with it in the Ionian Islands, and says (Ibis, 1860, p. 231) that one was 

 picked up by one of his yacht's crew close to the lighthouse of Santa Maura in March 1857, and 

 that he occasionally noticed it in Epirus in February and March. In a note lately received from 

 his Lordship, he writes respecting the present species as follows : — " This is a very local species ; 

 besides localities mentioned by me in ' The Ibis,' we met with it in small numbers in March 

 1875, on the shores of Suda Bay in Crete, where it seemed principally to frequent thick 

 bramble-brakes and bushes of cistus, amongst the olive-groves. It no doubt occurs, although 

 we did not obtain specimens, in Cyprus." Dr. Kriiper says that it is generally distributed and 

 not uncommon throughout Greece, occurring in all the bush-covered portions of the bases of 

 the mountains. He met with it breeding on Naxos not uncommonly. It arrives, he says, 

 between the 26th March and the 12th April, according to the season, and breeds late in April 

 or early in May. In 1864 he found five eggs on the 7th May, in 1871 five on the 3rd May, and 

 in 1872 five on the 20th April. Lindermayer states that, according to his experience (extending 

 over a space of twenty years), it arrives in Greece between the 16th and 20th March, and he 

 observed it in August migrating. I have no record of its occurrence in Turkey in Europe or 

 Southern Russia, north of the Black Sea ; but in Asia Minor it is, Dr. Kriiper informs me, 

 generally distributed and common, and is a summer visitant, arriving late in March. Specimens 

 from Asia Minor in my collection do not in the least differ from those from other localities in 

 Southern Europe ; but Dr. Severtzoff assures me that the species from Turkestan, which he says 

 is identical with Menetries's Sylvia mystacea (Cat. rais. p. 34, 1832), is specifically separable 

 from the present species. I have been unable to obtain a specimen from the Araxes or Kiir 

 river (on the banks of which, near Salian, Menetries's S. mystacea was obtained), and therefore 

 cannot speak from personal observation and comparison ; nor does Dr. Severtzoff say if he has 

 examined and compared specimens from the original locality to assure himself that Menetries's 

 bird and his specimens from Turkestan are specifically identical; but he writes to me as 

 follows : — " I have carefully compared Sylvia subalpina with Sylvia mystacea, and find that this 

 latter species, though discovered by Menetries himself, and joined by him with S. subalpina, is 

 distinct, differing by its black head, the markings of the tail, and the proportions of the quills. 

 We have in Turkestan only S. mystacea." 



To return, however, to the present species, I find it recorded from Palestine by Canon 

 Tristram, who says that he shot it on the wooded banks of the Jordan ; but Mr. Wyatt did not 

 meet with it in Sinai, It is, however, common in North-east Africa. Captain Shelley says 

 (B. of Egypt, p. 109) that he "first met with this bird towards the end of March near Damietia, 

 where I found it abundant, from which I conclude that it does not winter in Egypt. The low 

 bushes and herbage along the sides of the embankments are the favourite resorts of this lively 

 little Warbler ; and there it may be seen constantly on the move, creeping and flitting about- 

 amongst the thick shelter, and may be easily recognized at such times by its white outer tail- 

 feathers and diminutive size." Von Heuglin says that it was observed by him in Lower Egypt 

 and Northern Arabia, most frequently in the spring. It arrives, he writes, "between the 18th 



