4i>8 Notices and Descriptions of various [May, 



may add, (from my own notes,) that the absence of pure white on the 

 exterior tail-feathers is a further distinction of the British species, 

 though there is always a pale external and terminal portion. I believe, 

 too, that there is this distinction in their habits, that while the conti- 

 nental species is met with far inland, the British A. obscurus keeps 

 almost wholly to the immediate vicinity of the sea ; the only instance I 

 have known to the contrary (and I believe none has hitherto been 

 recorded), being that of one taken in a bird catcher's net near London, 

 which I kept for some two or three years in a cage. Now the Nepal bird 

 conforms to all these indications of A. aquaticus, unless it be that the 

 streaking of its upper-parts is too strongly brought out ; and it appears 

 that, at one season (probably that of breeding), the lower-parts, to judge 

 from several moulting specimens in different stages of advancement, but 

 none complete, become throughout of a faint vinous-roseate hue, with 

 the pectoral spots much contracted ; while, at another season, the rosy 

 tinge wholly disappears, the lower-parts becoming weak fulvescent, 

 with the dark spots much larger and broader. The bend of the wing, 

 and margins of the secondaries, are yellowish green, not unfrequently 

 rather bright, but sometimes this colour is scarcely observable ; and the 

 axillaries, and anterior margin of the wing beneath, incline to sulphur- 

 yellow : outermost tail-feather dullish white externally, but tipped, as 

 is also the next, with purer white. Length of wing generally three 

 inches and a half, or an eighth less or more ; of tail, commonly two 

 and three-quarters ; tarse seven-eighths ; and hind-claw generally three- 

 eighths. Inhabits the Himalaya? (Nepal.) A single specimen differs 

 from the rest in having the upper-parts plainer, especially the head, 

 which is scarcely striated ; and the pectoral and flank spots are smaller 

 and more contracted than usual : probably the nestling dress, a little 

 abraded.* 



Among what are termed the " Warblers," comparatively few have 

 hitherto found a place in Indian Ornithology, to what the general 

 analogy of other countries would lead us to suppose exist. The genus 

 Curruca, so largely developed in Europe, has only three ascertained 

 representatives. 



* Add, as an eleventh Indian species, upon the authority of Mr. Gray's catalogue 

 before referred to, A. rufescens, 'Jem., v. campestris, Bechst., v. Cichlops thermopkil us, 

 Hodgson, Gray's Zool. Misc., p. 83. 



