116 
BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
coverts^ with a broad black streak; primaries and secondaries brown, 
edged with rufous on the outer webs ; tertiaries black, with rufous edges 
to both webs ; tail blackish brown, broadly tipped with white, and each 
feather, when viewed from below, with a deep black subterminal patch ; 
sides of the head and an indistinct supercilium pale buff or pale rufous ; 
entire lower plumage buffy white, tinged with bright ochraceous on the 
sides of the breast and body and on the thighs. In summer the rufous 
margins to the feathers are pale and nearly obsolete, and the stripes are 
brown, the whole head, neck and upper back thus presenting a nearly 
uniform brown appearance. The ochraceous tinge on the lower plumage 
is also much duller. 
The young are more rufous than the adults, the black stripes on the 
upper plumage being nfcower and the rufous edgings broader. 
Iris light yellowish brown ; bill flesh-coloured, dark along the culmen ; 
legs and claws pinkish ; mouth black in the breeding-season, dusky at 
other times. 
Length 4*5 inches, tail 1'75^ wing 1*9, tarsus '8, bill from gape '6 ; 
in summer the tail measures 1*5 inch in length, and the total length of 
the bird is correspondingly decreased. The female is not appreciably 
smaller than the male. 
When Burmese examples of this species are compared with each other, 
they are found not to differ much. When, however, they are compared 
with birds from other countries, considerable variations are traced, chiefly 
in the markings of the upper plumage and of the tail. This is not the 
place to enter into an analysis of these variations ; suffice it to say, that 
from China to Europe there appears to be but one species. The seasonal 
changes of plumage that this bird undergoes were not understood till very 
lately, and have given rise to many spurious species. 
The Rufous Grass-Warbler is spread abundantly over every portion of 
British Burmah where there is grass- and paddy-land. Mr. Davison did 
not meet with it in Tenasserim further south than Tavoy ; but probably 
this is due to the absence of suitable country in the southern parts of 
Tenasserim, for it is found in the Malay peninsula and some of the dis- 
tant islands. It is a bird of immense range, being found throughout 
China up to Japan on the one hand and throughout the Indo-Burmese 
countries, India, and Western Asia to Southern Europe and the whole 
of Africa on the other. 
This bird is met with wherever there is grass and cultivated lands. In 
most places where it is found it is very abundant, and throughout the 
rains it is impossible to overlook it. The male has the habit of flying up 
into the air, uttering all the time a sharp note. After it has risen to a 
height of twenty yards or so, it descends again into the grass. It is in 
great measure a ground-feeder, and may frequently be seen in great 
