EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 201 



THE BLACKCAP. 

 (Sylvia atricapilla.) 



Plate 52, Figs. 17, 18, 19. 



The Blackcap is one of the best-known of all the Warblers that 

 visit us in spring and remain to nest. On the Continent the 

 Blackcap is generally distributed throughout Europe — in Scandi- 

 navia ranging as far north as lat. 66°, in the valley of the Dwina 

 to lat. 62°, and on the Ural Mountains to lat. 57°. 



The nest is made of dry grass-stems, leaf-stalks, a little moss, 

 and coarse roots, cemented together with a few cobwebs and 

 insect-cocoons, and lined with a few horse-hairs. Although very 

 slight in structure, it is well-built, very compact, and most 

 beautifully rounded. 



The eggs of the Blackcap are from four to six in number. 

 There are certainly three distinct types of the eggs of this 

 Warbler. The usual type is dirty white in ground-colour, suf- 

 fused with olive-brown or yellowish-brown, clouded with darker 

 tints of the same colour, and here and there marked with rich 

 brown spots and sometimes a few streaks. The second type 

 closely resembles certain varieties of the eggs of the Barred 

 Warbler. They are the palest of bluish-white in ground-colour ; 

 and most of the markings are underlying ones of violet-grey, with 

 a few surface-spots and blotches of yellowish-brown, intermingled 

 with one or two spots and streaks of dark brown. The third, and 

 perhaps the most beautiful type, certainly the rarest, is uniform 

 pale brick-red in colour, indistinctly marbled with darker shades, 

 and sparingly spotted and streaked with dark purplish-brown. 

 The usual type of the Blackcap's egg very closely resembles the 

 eggs of the Garden Warbler, but they are perhaps more uniformly 

 clouded and brighter in colour than those of that bird. They 

 vary in length from - 85 to 75 inch, and in breadth from 

 06 to 055 inch. 



THE GARDEN-WAEBLER. 

 {Sylvia hortensis.)* 



Plate 52, Figs, 12, 13. 



The Garden Warbler is pretty generally distributed throughout 

 England, except in the extreme south-west, but becomes exceed- 

 * Sylvia simplex — Sharpe, Handb., I., p. 195. 



