512 



general habits was rendered extremely difficult. It was absolutely impossible to keep still a 

 moment, the veil not only affording insufficient protection against their continuous attacks, but 

 being in other respects obstructive to minute observation. 



" The food, too, of Ph. borealis, at this season of the year, would seem to be wholly taken 

 from these countless myriads ; and the crops in all the species examined were crammed with 

 these inseets. There are at least half a dozen species of these mosquitos, all more or less 

 numerous, though some outnumber the others in particular localities. 



" On one occasion (July 22) I may have been close to a nest, on the Pasvig Elv, near Lake 

 Tschoaluie-javre, South Varanger. Both the parent birds exhibited unmistakable signs of alarm ; 

 but here, too, the mosquitos prevented me from finding the nest. A female shot in another 

 locality on the same river had large incubation-spots. 



" I prepared, in all, five specimens, four of which were males. Both sexes were, in regard to 

 colour of plumage, precisely alike. A very slight difference was seen in some of the males, the 

 dorsal feathers being in some darker than in others ; and the eye-stripe in such specimens was a 

 trifle wider." 



Mr. Collett gives a careful table of measurements of the specimens obtained by him, and 

 adds the following remarks respecting the same, viz. : — " The female would thus appear to be 

 somewhat smaller than the males, a deduction in accordance with Mr. Meves's measurements of 

 a number of specimens obtained at Kopaschevskaja, south of Archangel, on the 8th and 9th of 

 August 1860 (Ofv. Vet. Akad. Fbrh. 1871, p. 758), whereas, on the other hand, there was a 

 singular and almost invariable discrepancy between the Russian and Finmark specimens, the 

 latter appearing to have been all somewhat larger than those from Archangel. Middendorff has 

 before observed that the back of specimens taken in the middle of the summer, when the 

 plumage is somewhat worn and faded, has lost a little of its vivid green colour and has acquired 

 a greyer tint ; this was likewise the case with all the Finmark specimens, which, besides, scarcely 

 retained a trace of the whitish-yellow spots at the extremities of the wing-coverts that in autumn 

 and early spring give to the wings a yellowish band. The first primary in one specimen was a 

 trifle shorter than the coverts, in the others of the same length or very little (1 millim.) longer." 

 It was found commonly in North Russia, near Archangel, by Messrs. Alston and Harvie-Brown, 

 and by Mr. Meves near the village of Kopatschevskaja, where it doubtless breeds, as he shot 

 quite young birds in company with their parents. Piottuch sent specimens from Mesen ; and 

 Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie-Brown write (Ibis, 187G, p. 216) as follows: — "In Seebohm's col- 

 lection there are three skins of this species from North-east Russia. One was shot by Harvie- 

 Brown and Alston near Archangel ; a second was procured by Piottuch at Mesen ; and the third 

 was shot by Seebohm in the same locality as the variety of Phylloscqpus trochilus just mentioned, 

 and whilst he was searching for a second specimen. He remarked in his diary at the time that 

 the note was more rapid than that of Phylloscopus trochilus, and more resembling that of the 

 Whitethroat. In fact the song is more that of a Hypolais, a genus which the bird also resembles 

 in the large size and width of the bill. This species is a very distinct one. In size and colour 

 it resembles Phylloscopus trochilus, but has a distinct pale bar across the wings, caused by the 

 wing-coverts being pale at the tips. The wing-formula is the same, except that the bastard 

 primary is very much less, in fact as small as that of Phylloscopus sibilatrix. It further resembles 



