444 



BRITISH BIRDS OF THE Ro&lft KIND* 



which time the hen bird, which I could not perceive, was probably 

 sitting amongst the thick underwood." I have invariably found the 

 measurements and descriptions of plumage in M. Temminck's Manuel 

 to be most scrupulously correct, as far as could possibly have been 

 taken from museum specimens ; and I have therefore very much 

 wondered that the whole of our British writers on ornithology should 

 have considered the Sylvia hippolais of that author to have been 

 identical with the common chiff-chaff of this country. The chiff-chaff 

 (S. hippolais of British naturalists) is a smaller species than the 

 willow-wren, the latter measuring, as Temminck correctly states, about 

 four inches, five or six lines * ; but the 8. hippolais of the continental 

 writers is a much larger bird, and measures, acccording to the same 

 author, five inches, four or five lines. M. Temminck's description, 

 also, of the plumage of his hec-Jin a poilrine jaune, does not accord 

 with that of the chiff-chaff, and it is therefore clear, that two distinct 

 birds have hitherto been jumbled together under the one name Sylvia 

 hippolais. Mr. Herbert, however, is wrong in considering his ching- 

 ching to be the aS'. hippolais of the continental writers, for I find, by 

 the most careful and minute comparison, that the polyglot (the bird 

 described at page 50 of this magazine, under the name of " the 

 arbour bird," Horticola polyglotta,) is the species intended ; and I 

 was incorrect, therefore, myself, at page 204, in stating that Tem- 

 minck's <S. hippolais referred, not to the Horticola, but to the ching- 

 ching. I have now before me a specimen of the polyglot, which cor- 

 responds exactly to a feather with M. Temminck's description of 

 S. hippolais; it bears not the least resemblance to the different 

 willow- wrens, excepting in the colour of its plumage ; its bill is large, 

 and of the nightingale form ; longer, and not quite so thick as it is 

 represented at page 52, and the rictorial bristles, also, are not so 

 large and conspicuous as they are there made to appear. The under 

 mandible of the bill, as Temminck states, is white ; in the chiff-chaff 

 it is of a dark colour ; and the whole plumage of the under parts (in 

 the Horticola) is of one uniform pale brownish yellow. Its general 

 structure is much like that of a Ficedula, but it differs from that 

 genus in the form of its bill, and in its never feeding upon fruit. Its 

 nest, a fine specimen of which I lately examined, is of a very beautiful 

 and solid construction, and is well represented at page 49. It is the 

 bastard nactigall of Bechstein ; the grand pauillot of Cuvier ; and the 



* French measure. 



