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sprightly bird, quarrelsome, and continually bickering with others of its species, like Eypolais 

 polyglotta ; but whether it makes the same sound by snapping its bill I am unable to say from 

 personal observation, but think it highly probable. It inhabits the olive-groves, and is found 

 there only on the olive-trees, being extremely shy, and difficult of approach ; for though easily 

 discovered by its song, still it assimilates so closely in coloration to the foliage of the olive-trees 

 that it is exceedingly difficult to catch a glimpse of or to distinguish it from the leaves. It is 

 continually moving about in the tree-tops, and is never met with in bushes, reeds, or near water, 

 and therefore does not bear the least affinity to the Reed- Warblers, but affects the solitary naked- 

 looking olive-groves ; and when the wanderer is passing through these groves during the heat of 

 a June day, and searches for a shady spot, he hears nothing but the shrill chirp of the cicada, 

 which is to be met with in countless numbers on every tree, and the shrill searching cry of this 

 Warbler. It places its nest on an olive-tree, and fastens it to one of the small boughs in such 

 a manner that the bough passes through a portion of the nest itself. The nest is constructed 

 with some care out of grasses, and is a tolerably close and strong structure, being lined with 

 the woolly fibres of various species of thistles. Though closer-built and warmer than the nests 

 of many species of Warblers, it is a far less artistic and elegant structure than that of its ally, 

 Ilypolais polyglotta. The eggs are deposited late in May or early in June, and are from three 

 to four in number. In form they are rather elongated, oval, and in colour a rich rosy grey when 

 fresh, but soon fade to dull greyish, and are marked with dark brown largish spots, between 

 which are very small blackish dots. As it remains for so short a period in Greece, it is probable 

 that it raises only one brood in the season." 



It is found in Asia Minor ; according to Dr. Kniper it is common in the larger olive- and 

 oak-groves near Smyrna ; and Canon Tristram states that it is confined to the olive- and oak- 

 woods in the north of Palestine. It undoubtedly winters in Northern Africa ; but, curiously 

 enough, I find scarcely any notice of its having been met with there during the winter. Mr. 

 Jesse, however, obtained a single example in Abyssinia ; and I had a specimen in spring plumage 

 collected by Rogers in Egypt, which I gave to Captain Shelley, in whose collection it now is. 

 Von Heuglin does not refer to it in his work on the ornithology of North-east Africa. Mr. 

 Carstensen (Naumannia, ii. pt. i. p. 77) says that he procured it in Tangier and Fez ; and Canon 

 Tristram (Ibis, 1860, p. 156) states that he shot it in Algeria, and took its nest there. 



I have never seen the present species alive, and am indebted to my friend Mr. H. Seebohm, 

 who has had ample opportunities of observing it in a state of nature, for the following excellent 

 notes on its distribution in Greece and Asia Minor, and on its habits as observed by him in these 

 countries : — " Hypolais olivetorum is by no means an uncommon bird in the olive-plantations on 

 both sides of the archipelago. In the valleys between the rocky limestone mountain-ranges to 

 the west of Athens, as also in the similar valleys to the east of Smyrna, wherever you find the 

 olive, there, in spring, you are sure to hear, but by no means sure to see, this interesting 

 warbler. Further north it becomes rarer. In the valleys around Mount Olympus it is seldom 

 heard, and in the neighbourhood of Saloniki may be considered very rare. It is of course a 

 migratory bird, arriving in the neighbourhood of Athens and Smyrna about the 1st of May, 

 sometimes a few days earlier, sometimes a few days later. In Greece and Asia Minor this is a 

 very late date for the arrival of summer migrants, some six weeks after the arrival of the Barn- 



