PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 5 



BLACKCAP [Sylvia atricapitta (Linnaeus). Blackcap peggy, coal-hoodie. 

 French, fauvette a tete noire ; German, Monch-Grasmiicke ; Italian, capinera}. 



1. Description. The blackcap differs from all the other British Warblers, 

 the male in having a black cap, grey throat, and no white in the tail feathers 

 distinguishing it from the orphean warbler the female and young in having a 

 brown cap. (PI. 48.) The male, in spring, has the crown black with a bluish gloss, 

 the sides of the head, hind neck and back pure ash-grey, but the back is tinged with 

 olive-brown. The wings are coloured like the back, but shade into dull grey in the 

 wing-quills. The tail feathers are like the quills, but have narrow margins of olive- 

 brown. The throat, fore-neck and mid-breast are pale grey, with a tinge of buff 

 on the flanks. After the autumn moult the back and rump have a decided tinge 

 of olive, and the abdomen a wash of light yellowish buff. Length 5-75 in. [146 

 mm.]. The female, in spring, differs from the male in having the crown of a dull 

 umber, the nape and sides of the neck ash-grey. The under parts are ashy white, 

 slightly tinged on the fore-breast and flanks with olive-ochre. In autumn the female 

 is slightly browner. The juvenile plumage resembles that of the female, the crown 

 being brownish buff ; the upper parts olive-grey, and the wings slate-colour, the 

 wing-coverts and inner secondaries being edged with grey. The throat, fore-breast, 

 and flanks rather light olive-buff. During the winter the young males acquire the 

 black cap of the adult, though often the tips of the feathers are brown, [w. p. p.] 



2. Distribution. A summer visitor to the British Isles and the Continent of 

 Europe (except the north of Scandinavia and Russia), the Mediterranean Isles, Asia 

 Minor, Palestine, and W. Siberia, but partially resident in the Mediterranean basin, 

 and also sedentary in the Azores, Cape Verde Isles, and N.-W. Africa, while a local 

 race is found in Madeira and the Canaries, 8. atricapilla heineken (Jard.). In Great 

 Britain it is scarce in Cornwall, Pembroke, Carnarvon, and Anglesey, while in Scot- 

 land it has seldom been recorded as breeding north of the Forth, Clyde, and Tay 

 areas, though isolated instances of nesting have been reported from Moray, Dee, and 

 W. Ross, as well as the Orkneys and perhaps the Shetlands. In Ireland it is scarce, 

 but occurs in widely separated localities, but not north of Fermanagh and Cavan 

 or in the south-west. Outside its breeding range it occurs in Africa as far south as 

 Senegal on the west, in the oases of the Sahara, along the Nile valley to Nubia, 

 Abyssinia, Somaliland, and southward as far as Lake Nyassa in Equatorial Africa, 

 as well as in Arabia. [F. c. B. j.] 



3. Migration. This species is a summer visitor to Great Britain, though 

 solitary individuals have been known to winter in Devon and Cornwall. It is one 



