112 THE NESTS AND EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



inside. The parents are shy and retiring birds, close 

 sitters, and sHpping off quietly into the cover when 

 disturbed, where a trembling twig or the harsh call-note 

 of tec is the only sign of their presence. 



Range of egg colouration and measurement : 

 The eggs of the Garden Warbler are usually four or 

 five in number, sometimes as many as six. They vary 

 in ground colour from pure white to white tinged with 

 buff or green, blotched, spotted, mottled, and freckled 

 with olive-brown, dark brown, and buffish-brown, and 

 with underlying markings of paler brown and gray. 

 Some eggs are handsomely blotched and clouded, the 

 larger and paler markings being intermingled with 

 smaller and darker spots ; others have the small dark 

 spots predominant and clustering round the larger end, 

 mingled with gray underlying ones ; whilst in others 

 most of the markings are underlying ones — large graj' 

 blotches, with a few darker surface-spots between them. 

 Average measurement, 75 inch in length, by '6 inch in 

 breadth. Incubation, performed chiefly by the female, 

 lasts fourteen days. 



Diagnostic characters : The eggs of the Garden 

 Warbler cannot always be distinguished from those of 

 the Blackcap, although the rufous type does not appear 

 to occur. They require the most careful identification. 

 It may be remarked that the male has no black cap, 

 neither has the female the chestnut cap which distin- 

 guishes that sex of the Blackcap. 



