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the reeds on Lake Fezzara, in the desert, in bushes close to the water, and even in the oases at 

 Seggien ; and he likewise remarks that it sings throughout the winter. Favier says that it is rare 

 near Tangier, and is seen on passage in February and March, to return in October ; but to this 

 Colonel Irby adds that, according to his experience, it is certainly not rare in spring near 

 Tangier in suitable localities. 



To the eastward it is found as far as Turkestan. Mr. Blanford gives me the following note 

 respecting its presence in Persia : — " I only shot Cetti's Warbler in the Elburz Mountains, north 

 of Tehran; it abounded in bushes on the sides of the valleys; and I shot one in a thick jungle 

 on the hill-side far from water. This bird was found by Menetries on the Talish Mountains, 

 south of Lenkoran, in the hedges around gardens ; and it probably occurs in summer at all 

 suitable places on the Persian highlands ; for I obtained the nest and eggs in the great marsh at 

 Asupas, north of Shiraz." Mr. A. O. Hume found it tolerably common in tamarisk-swamps in 

 Sindh. Dr. Severtzoff states that it breeds in Turkestan; and he considers that two forms occur 

 there, one of which he calls Cettia albiventris, and says it is identical with the bird found in 

 Asia Minor, and with Cettia stoliczkce, Hume, which latter he has examined ; and the other, 

 which he calls Cettia scalenura, is, he informs me, " nothing but a Uralo-Kirghis (a north- 

 eastern) variety of the European Cetti's Warbler." And indeed, after going over my series of 

 specimens with Dr. Severtzoff, I cannot believe in either of these being specifically distinct from 

 our European bird. 



Owing chiefly to the unobtrusive and secretive nature of the present species, but com- 

 paratively little is recorded respecting its habits. It appears to frequent damp bush-covered 

 localities, swamps, overgrown ditches, and suchlike places ; and it is extremely difficult of 

 observation. Canon Tristram, writing on its habits as observed by him in Palestine, says (Ibis, 

 1867, p. 79), "it seems to prefer the margins of very narrow streams and ditches, so long as 

 they are well fringed with thicket, to larger pieces of swamp ; and most tantalizing was it time 

 after time to hear the sudden burst of a resounding song, like the first part of a Nightingale's 

 suddenly cut short, from the centre of some impenetrable tangle of prickly bramble, into which 

 we might pitch stones in vain until we were startled by the same note issuing from the next 

 thicket." Mr. A. von Homeyer (J. f. O. 1862, p. 281) describes it as frequenting in Majorca 

 wet meadows overgrown with Salicornia intermixed with tamarisks and Arundo donax, in the 

 middle of which there is a freshwater lake about 800 yards long and 150 to 200 yards wide. 



The song of Cetti's Warbler is very loud for the size of the bird, but is clear and pleasing. 

 Dr. Hansmann, who publishes (Naumannia, 1857, pp. 409-413) some excellent notes on the 

 present species, gathered from personal observation in Sardinia, describes his first acquaintance 

 with it as follows : — " In the first days of May, when one midday I was coming down the 

 mountain towards the town of Iglesias, and had just turned into a path which led towards the 

 foot of the rocks along a stream whose banks (in some places 20 feet high) were covered with 

 a dense thicket of brambles, wild roses, and other thorny bushes, while on the other side of the 

 path a few scattered laurels were on the otherwise bare hill-side, I suddenly heard issue from one 

 of these a short, loud, hurried song, which reminded me of that of a Chaffinch when, during the 

 breeding-season, it drives another male out of the district it has taken possession of. I at once 

 cocked my gun and slowly approached the bush whence the song proceeded. I was soon close 



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