151 
On the Salicarise of Dr. Severtzoff. 
imagine may be fairly put down as only stray birds from a 
regular and more numerous stream of migrants. The direction 
that most of these birds came from would indicate they were 
migrants from the coasts of Arabia and Persia, whatever their 
destination may have been. One conviction has forced itself 
on me, viz. the great influence which vessels, more especially 
large and fast steamers of the present day, may have on the 
distribution of species of birds. Some of our visitors re¬ 
mained with us for days, and landed on shores most likely 
out of the line of their migrations; and in one instance a 
Wagtail ( Motacilla ) remained with us all the way up the 
Red Sea and Suez Canal, and found a new home on the 
shores of the Mediterranean. 
December 12th, 1876. 
XIY. —On the Salicarise of Dr. Severtzoff. 
By Henry Seebohm. 
In f The Ibis 5 for 1876 (pp. 83 et seqq.), Dresser has given 
us as pretty a little ornithological puzzle as I have seen for 
a long time in the Salicarice of SevertzofFs f Fauna of Tur¬ 
kestan/ There are no less than sixteen or eighteen of 
them named and, more or less, described. The descriptions 
of two of them, S. scita and S. arundinacea, are omitted; but 
fortunately these are supplied in a letter from Dr. Severtzoff 
to the editor of f Stray Feathers 5 (Str. Feath. iii. p. 420). 
These two articles will, I think, supply sufficient data to 
unravel the tangle. 
Salicaria turdoides (p. 83) may be dismissed at once as 
Acrocephalus arundinaceus (Linn.). 
Salicaria arundinacea (p. 83) might be thought naturally to 
be either Acrocephalus streperus or A.palustris. I have never 
had an opportunity of comparing these two birds in the flesh, 
and cannot distinguish any difference of general colour or of 
colour of the legs in the skin. I find, however, that A. palus- 
tris has a more pointed wing. Out of five of this species in 
Dresser's collection I find that in one the second primary is 
'equal to the third, and in the four others intermediate in length 
m 2 
