53 
are hatched after fourteen days’ incubation, and' in their nestling plumage nearly 
resemble the adult individuals, their feathers being, however, of looser texture, 
and the colour of the head and back more uniform The upper parts are of a 
brownish-ash colour, darkest about the ear-coverts, (which contrasts strikingly 
with the pure snowy white of the throat), and relieved by a lighter tint around the 
edges of the tertiary wing-feathers, which, however, do not in the least incline to 
mahogany colour, as in the Whitethroat: all the under parts are also white, 
inclining to silvery on the breast and flanks: exterior feathers of the tail whitish; 
legs and feet dusky lead colour. The adults differ chiefly in the purer grey of 
the feathers on the head, and some of the males have a very faint tinge, or rather 
gloss, of blush, upon the breast, as is more observable in the male Whitethroat.* * * § 
The hue of the iris, also, which is hazel in the younger individuals, becomes of a 
beautiful pure pearly-white as they advance in age. Specimens with white irides 
are, however, comparatively seldom met with.f 
Altogether, this is a bird of different aspect from that of either of its British 
congeners, hut is nearly allied to a continental species, called Sylvia passerina by 
M. Temminck, and also to another, the S. subalpina of the same author, J which 
combines the peculiar structure of the Whitebreasted Fauvet with the dark vinous 
colouring of the Dusky Furzelin. All these little birds (more particularly the 
last-mentioned) are rather more full-looking and puffy of feather about the head 
and throat than the Blackcap and other typical Ficedula ; and in affinities, appear 
to be intermediate between those species with black crowns and party-coloured 
tails, (Fsarda, melanocephala , &c.), and that form to which the Whitethroated 
Fauvet of this country belongs, and the continental F. conspicittata; which latter 
group, again, is connected with the typical species (those with tails of a uniform 
colour, as our F, atricapilla, and F. hortensis), by the intervention of the Euro¬ 
pean F. orphea , a species common enough in the south of France, and remarkable 
for nidificating in society.§ The dusky Furzelin is, in many respects, intermediate 
between the Whitethroated and Whitebreasted Fauvets, (the Greater and Lesser 
Whitethroats of authors); but, nevertheless, possesses other characters of sufficient 
* I remember to have read, in the writings of some French Naturalist, who laboured 
to prove that birds of the same species are much brighter coloured as we proceed south¬ 
ward, that this faint tinge of rose-colour on the breast of the present species is much finer 
in specimens obtained from Africa. What can be more shallow than such an assertion ? 
since the identical individuals which pass the summer in Europe, retire, after having 
undergone their autumnal moult, to Africa, to spend the winter, and return in the very 
same garb to their summer haunts ! 
•f I have only seen two with the iris perfectly white, three or four with it partially so. 
Of the former, one was a male, the other a female. 
X Curruca leucopizon of Mr. Gould. — 
§ At least, so says TemminckNiche dans les buissons, souvent plusieurs en un 
meme lieu,” &c. 
