MALAYAN ORNITHOLOGY. 15 



tinged with buff on the flanks and ear-coverts ; upper parts grey- 

 brown, slightly tinged with yellowish green ; inner margins of 

 wing-feathers buff'. 



Cisticola cursttans (Frankl.). The Fantail Warbler. 



This tiny bird, identical with the European Fantail Warbler, is 

 found throughout the Straits wherever there is open grass-country, 

 or ground covered with scrub, particularly if it be low-lying and 

 marshy. It is very plentiful in Singapore on those parts of the 

 island where the jungle has been cleared and long " lalang " grass 

 sprung up, with bushes scattered here and there. In my notes 

 is : — 



" Tanglin, Singapore, 8th July, 1879. All this afternoon I 

 was collecting small birds in the neighbourhood of Mount Echo- 

 capital collecting-ground. Among the scrub bordering the paddy- 

 fields, Grass Warblers, G. cursitans, were very numerous. I 

 watched one of them for a long time, at one moment clinging to 

 the top of a grass-stalk and singing with low, feeble, but melodious 

 notes, the next flitting with an ascending series of jerks high up into 

 the air, and uttering its shrill cry, pittl pittl pittl, repeated over 

 and over again, then suddenly ceasing as the bird dropped like 

 a stone straight down into the grass. They seem to me to be 

 exactly like the Fantail Warbler I knew so well in the Medi- 

 terranean, and which bred plentifully on the marshy land near 

 Gibraltar. Eggs I saw there were white, covered with small red 

 specks ; but they vary very much, if I remember rightly, some 

 being of a uniform blue colour. 



" During July I found a nest among the bushes on the waste 

 land bordering the rifle-range at Tanglin ; it was a substantial 

 domed structure, built almost on the ground, at the bottom of a 

 tuft of reeds, with many of the stalks regularly woven into it. 

 Though very well hidden, I found it by carefully watching the 

 bird, wdiieh got very excited whenever I approached, and so consi- 

 derably helped me in finding its nest, which, however, was then 

 empty, and afterwards deserted, probably because I slightly moved 

 it when feeling for the eggs." 



Budytes flavus (Linn.). 



I own to being much puzzled by tl\e Wagtails, their plumage 



