A HITHERTO OVHRLOOKED BRITISH BIRD. 117 
lengthened, without strong reflexes on the tips, less compact, 
and less strongly pigmented. The tail in the common Marsh 
Tits is almost straight, only the lateral pair being a little shorter. 
Lhe tail in P. salicarius and allies is strongly graduated, at least 
the two lateral pairs being much shortened. ‘There are also 
differences in colour, form, and size of bill, et cet.; but they 
are not so easy to see, and I will not dilate upon them at length. 
With regard to P. salicarius, it may be added that it differs froin 
P. borealis considerably in size, form of bill, colour of flanks, 
colour of edges of wings, and of the entire upper side. It is, 
however, as P. borealis is not known to occur in Great Britain, 
more important for British ornithologists to distinguish it from 
the ordinary British Marsh Tit generally called P. palustris 
dresseri, and I may therefore repeat that it differs from the latter 
chiefly in the colour and structure of the feathers of the crown, 
the form of the tail, and the more rufous flanks and more 
brownish edges of the secondaries, besides its call-note being 
very different. 
P. salicarwus, although described as long ago as 1831, has 
been lost sight of for a long time, and only quite recently our 
young friends on the Continent, Kleinschmidt and Prazak, have 
rediscovered it. I myself came across it long ago in the willow 
thickets of the Lower Rhine near Wesel, and was at once struck 
by the colour of its crown, which, however, I thought erroneously 
to be due to its being a young summer bird. No credit therefore 
is due to my observation, which was lost through my travelling 
far away into Africa and India, which ended for a time my 
studies of German birds. The specimen in question, which 
somehow lost its original exact label, was later given by me to 
the British Museum in exchange, and is therenow. P. salicarius 
evidently inhabits dark willow thickets and other swampy woods, 
so dense that the sun hardly ever reaches the ground in them. It 
is found on the Rhine between Worms and Bingen and near 
Wesel, and at Renthendorf in Saxony. When Mr. Kleinschmidt 
was in England last autumn he recognized two British skins, 
from Hampstead, in the British Museum, as P. salicarius, and 
as these birds were just then in fairly good plumage, I at once 
tried to procure some specimens, but only succeeded in getting 
three from Finchley. 
