212 
allen’s naturalist’s library. 
tinged with yellow, extending from the base of the bill to just 
behind the eye ; sides of face dingy olive, with a dusky line 
through the eye ; under surface of body dingy olive-yellow, 
whiter on the centre of the breast, abdomen, and under tail- 
coverts, ihe latter washed with olive-yellow; under wing-coverts 
and axillaries rather brighter greenish-yellow ; quills dusky 
below, ashy-whitish along the edge of the inner webs ; bill dark 
brown, the lower mandible slightly paler; feet and claws dark 
brown, almost black ; iris hazel. Total length, 4-6 inches ; 
culmen, 0-5 ; wing, 28; tail, 19; tarsus, o-8." 
Adult Female — Similar to the male. Total length, 4-5 inches ; 
wing, 2-4. 
Autumn Plumage — Much more fulvescent in tint than in sum- 
mer, the eyebrow being fulvous, and the throat, chest, and 
sides of the body also of this colour, with a few yellow streaks 
on the throat and breast. 
Young. — Similar to the adults, but entirely olive-yellow under- 
neath, the under wing-coverts and axillaries, and the edge of 
the wings, being brighter yellow. 
Note. — The Chiffchaff can be easily recognised by the shape of the 
wing, which is much more rounded than in the Willow- Warbler or Wood- 
Warbler, and has the second primary, i.e., the first long primary m the 
wing, about equal in length to the sixth. The general colour is more 
dingy, and the size is rather smaller than that of the Willow-Warbler. 
Both in life and in a prepared skin the feet are much darker, appearing 
black in the skin of a Chiffchaff, and hrown in a Willow- Warbler. This 
character and that of the more rounded wing of the Chiffchaff render the 
two birds easily recognisable one from the other. 
Range in Great Britain. — An early summer visitor, arriving in 
the middle of March, and leaving in September and October. 
Chiffchaffs occasionally remain in England during the winter, 
and Mr. Robert Read has presented to the British Museum 
a specimen obtained by him in Somersetshire on the 27th of 
December, 1892. Mr. Howard Saunders says that the bird 
winters mostly in the south-western counties, when it elects to 
stay in England during the cold w eather. In all parts of Great 
Britain it is a rarer bird than the Willow- Warbler, but is com- 
moner in some districts than others, being rare or local in Nor- 
folk, Lancashire, and in the north-west of Yorkshire, but again 
more plentiful in the northern counties of England, and" the 
