58 WARBLER. 



49— CAPE WHEAT-EAR. 



Sylvia Hottentotta, Ind. Orn. ii. 531. 



Motacilla Hottentotta, Gm. Lin. i. 963. 



Grand Motteux, ou (Jul blanc du Cap de B. Esp. Buf. v. 248. 



Traquet Imitateur, Levail. Afr. iv. 92. pi. 181. — male. 182. — young. 



Cape Wheat Ear, Gen. Syn. iv. 470. Shaw's Zool. x. 573. 



LENGTH six inches and a half. Bill and legs black ; forehead 

 white, passing over the eyes as a streak ; chin and throat white; top 

 of the head black; through the eye, from the bill, a streak of black, 

 curving on the sides of the neck, there finishing in a broad bar; the 

 rest of the under parts white ; plumage on the upper parts of the 

 body and wings clay-brown ; rump white ; quills and tail feathers 

 dusky, with pale edges. 



The female is smaller, the colours less bright, the white less pure, 

 and the black on the breast inclining to brown : in young birds the 

 black on the breast is wanting. It differs from the Pileated Warbler 

 next described, in being bigger, and the white streak passing over 

 the eye broader, which in the last named is only a slender stripe; 

 on the breast, too, in the latter is a band more than an inch broad ; 

 it is probable that they may be allied. 



Inhabits the Cape of Good Hope, almost every where in the 

 neighbourhood of the Colony, chiefly among the cattle, and feeds 

 on insects and worms : it sometimes builds in a hollow in the earth, 

 or rock ; at other times in some old ant hill, and lays five eggs, of a 

 turquoise blue. The Cape Wheat-Ear is probably the female. Both 

 this and the following are named Schaap Wagter. 



