286 MR. H. E. DRESSER ON PALLAS’S WILLOW WARBLER 
I received a young, not fully fledged, bird from Mr. Meves, who 
shot it at Tjubuk on the 21st July, but up to the present time no 
particulars of its nidificatiou have been published beyond that by 
Mr. W. E. Brooks (Str. Feath. vol. vii. p. 510), who found 
a newly made nest in Kashmir, which he describes as being 
domed, and placed on the steep bank-side of a ravine full of 
small Birch trees, at an elevation of about eleven thousand feet. 
Unfortunately this nest was empty. Until the above cited 
occurrence in Great Britain, this Warbler had not been known to 
occur west of Russia, except on Heligoland, where according to 
Mr. Giitke it has been obtained on three occasions, viz., a young 
bird on the 25th September, 1878, an adult male on the 30th May, 
1879, and a female on the 3rd June, 1880. It winters, I may 
add, in India, at which season it is to be met with over the whole 
peninsula, with the exception of Sind and Western Rajputana, as 
far south as Ceylon. 
This Warbler is said to frequent mixed groves and woods ; and, 
according to Severtzoff, it is to be met with amongst bushes and 
the tall steppe grass. Dr. Scully noticed it amongst the Tamarisk 
and Willow bushes, and remarks that it seemed very restless, 
continually flitting from spray to spray. Both Blyth and 
Dr. Scully state that its voice is weak, and the former 
describes the note as tiss-yip, tiss-yip, frequently uttered. 
Sabanaeff, however, says that the voice of this bird consists of so 
loud and strong a trill that it can scarcely be recognised as the 
song of a Leaf Warbler, and its call-note, which is a short and 
shrill psi, psi , closely resembles that of the Yellow Wagtail. 
Another Warbler, which though not a distinct species, and 
which has lately been obtained in Great Britain, is interesting as 
showing that Eastern forms often visit these islands, is the small 
form of the Common Chiffchaff, which was described by 
von Homeyer (Erinn. a. d. Samml Deutschl. Ornith., 1870, p. 18) 
as a distinct species under the name of Phylloscopus brehmi, but 
is only a diminutive race of our Common Chiffchaff, which I have 
hitherto only seen from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. 
Compared with our birds it looks quite distinct, but in a series 
from different parts of Europe the variations in size are so great 
that this difference vanishes, and 1 cannot look on it as worthy of 
specific rank. • 
