noticed it in winter among tlie oases of the Sahara as far
south (lat. 32 N.) as he travelled. Mr. Drake met with it
in Morocco, where it is rare. In Spain Mr. Saunders states
that he once recognized it in the marshes of the Guadalquivir,
and he has since received a specimen from the same locality.
It has occurred at Malta; but it is very rare, if known at
all, in Sicily, and in Italy would not seem to be common.
Dr. Salvadori says that the museum at Cagliari possesses
a specimen, killed no doubt in Sardinia. In France the only
departments that it can certainly be said to affect are in the extreme
south. In the singular district known as the Camargue,
it has been observed in winter and is said, by MM. Jaubert
and Barthelemy-Lapommeraye, to be resident, but on the
Durance it seems to be only a bird of passage.
Alexander von Nordmann has stated that in two successive
years during the latter half of April he took alive
several birds of this species which had entered through the
open windows the orangeries of the botanic garden at Odessa.
They climbed about the various plants with much agility,
flying only for short distances and frequently hiding themselves.
In captivity they ate grubs and other small insects,
but hardly lived beyond three or four days. The tail, he adds,
is constantly kept spread, and when the bird is in progress
is raised, the fore part of the body being depressed.
The bill is brown, with the lower mandible lighter : the
whole upper surface of the body, wings and tail, reddish-
brown, the last being indistinctly barred with narrow darker
bands, chin almost white; throat, breast and belly pale
1 eddish-brown ; sides of the body, flanks and lower tail-
coverts, which last are longer than the lateral tail-feathers,
rather darker, but lighter than above : legs, toes and claws,
pale brown.
The whole length of the bird five inches and a h a lf: the
wing, from the anterior bend, two inches and a hal f ; the
first primary is very short, the second and third are much
curved, and the second is the longest in the wing, the rest
gradually decreasing in length. The tail-feathers, twelve in
number, are very broad.
This species seems to be generically inseparable from the
Sylvia fluviatilis of Johann Wolf, made by Dr. Kaup, in 1829,
the type of his genus Potamodus. In 1838 Bonaparte proposed
for Savi’s Warbler the generic name of Pseudoluscinia,
which a few years later he altered to Lusciniopsis, and one
or the other of these terms has since been very commonly
used for it. But, if the group of aquatic Warblers be further
broken up, the name Potamodus should certainly be used for
that section which contains Savi’s Warbler and the River-
Warbler just mentioned—two species which agree in every
essential character, and in appearance differ chiefly by the latter
having a much less rufous tinge generally, and its throat
being distinctly striped with dark longitudinal markings.
The vignette represents the nest of Savi’s Warbler given
to the British Museum by Mr. Bond as before mentioned,
and the first ever brought to the notice of naturalists,
for the opportunity of figuring which the Editor is indebted
to the kindness of the authorities of the Museum, and
especially to that of his friend Dr. Albert Gunther.