FIRE-CREST. 1 29 



orange. The wing has two white bars and a dark band. The 

 legs and irides are brown, and the eyes almost black. The 

 young are duller in colour and have no yellow in the crest. 

 Length, 3-5 ins. Wing, 2*1 ins. Tarsus, 7 in. 



Fire-crest. RegiUus ignicapilhis (Temm.). 



The Fire-crest (Plate 50) nests in Europe as far north as the 

 Baltic and occurs in eastern and southern England with some 

 degree of regularity ; it is a winter visitor, arriving with the 

 immigrant Goldcrests and often joining them in their nomadic 

 rambles. North of Yorkshire it is only an occasional straggler, 

 and many of the so-called records of its occurrence are 

 erroneous. No doubt, owing to its similarity to the commoner 

 bird, it is often overlooked, but, on the other hand, many are 

 misled by the difference in the crest of the male and female 

 Goldcrest, and imagine that the orange on the former is the 

 *' fire." Its call, according to Miss Turner — one of the few who 

 has watched and not slain this interesting mite in England — 

 is a fainter ^//, zit, than that of the Goldcrest. The black line 

 which bounds the crest meets on the forehead of the Fire-crest, 

 where in the other bird there is a brown mark behind the buff. 

 In the male the orange covers a greater extent than in the 

 Goldcrest, but in the female the whole streak is lemon-yellow, 

 and in the juvenile all the yellow is absent. It is, however, 

 on the face of birds of either sex and of the young that the 

 most characteristic markings can be seen. Above the eye is 

 a broad almost white stripe, and below a narrower one, whilst 

 through the eye, dividing the white face, is a conspicuous black 

 line. The ear-coverts are slate-grey, and there is a slight 

 moustachial streak. On the side of the neck is a yellowish 

 patch, and the upper parts are greener and the lower whiter 

 than in the Goldcrest. Length, 3*5 ins. Wing, 2'i ins. Tarsus, 

 7 in. 



Scries /. K 



