Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/363

Rh the upper mandible was a pale horn-colour, the lower mandible primrose-yellow; inside of rictus bright yellow; eyes dark violet, with dark brown irides; legs pale flesh-colour, tinged with brown; soles of feet extremely bright primrose-yellow (this singular characteristic pertains also to the Reed Warbler); claws pale flesh-colour, tinged beneath with yellow.

Mr. Dresser's test of the comparative length of the primaries held good, the second primary being found conspicuously longer than the fourth. I do not think much of this mark of distinction, for on looking at two fine adults of what I have always considered the Reed Warbler,—one shot near Cambridge, the other taken at the spring migration near Brighton,—I find that in both the second primary is much longer than the fourth. It is just possible that both these birds may be A. palustris, for they certainly have backs more of an olive-brown than of a russetbrown; and this is Mr. Howard Saunders' differentiation of the two species. In general coloration the Marsh Warbler and the Reed Warbler are, as I have said, almost identical, and perhaps the shades of colour on the upper parts furnish the only point of distinction between them, and even these shades approach one another very closely as the skins dry and the general tone of colour fades and approximates to what a witty friend of Mr. Dresser well termed "museum colour."

I may add to this account the statement of Coates, that during his experience as a bird-catcher in the environs of Taunton, he has at different times taken more than a dozen nests similar to those described above, and with eggs in them of the same character. Mr. Marshall, however, thinks that he can have taken none during the last thirteen years, or they would have been brought to him, and possibly this statement of the birdcatcher may be an exaggeration.

Since writing the above, Mr. Howard Saunders has kindly lent me a beautiful skin of a male A. palustris, labelled "Astrachan," to compare with my Taunton bird; and although this specimen is in perfect plumage, and mine is rather ragged from moult having set in, after placing the two side by side, I can only detect a perfect resemblance. The olive tints of the back are the same, and so are the white under parts, on which a delicate primrose tinge is still more or less apparent; and in both birds the second Rh