BLACKCAP 



buff, and the crop, sides of the breast, and flanks rather a light 

 olive buff. Under parts and under tail-coverts are buff, and 

 the crissum whitish. The feet are flesh colour with a tinge of 

 lavender. 



The gape is reddish flesh with a tinge of ochre, and the 

 tongue the same colour with two dusky spots near the root. 



The bill is dark horn colour, and the corner of the mouth 

 yellow. Iris bluish black, lower eyelid ochre, and the lores 

 slaty grey. 



On leaving the egg the bird is naked, with eyelids com- 

 pletely sealed. The skin is flesh colour, but more lilac on the 

 throat, back of the head, and spine, and orange red where the 

 lungs are visible. The corner of the mouth is whitish flesh 

 and the gape and tongue flesh colour, the latter having two 

 light ash grey spots and a central red line. The feet are of a 

 transparent flesh colour. 



Immature. — The plumage differs only slightly from that of 

 the adults, except that the young male has the cap dark rusty 

 umber brown. The colour of this cap changes during the 

 winter, and the bird returns in the spring as a rule with it 

 black, but in some cases the change has not then reached 

 completion, the tips of the feathers being still brown. 



A dark variety in which the head, throat, and upper 

 breast are blackish, and the remainder of the plumage much 

 darker, has been met with in the countries bordering the 

 Mediterranean, Madeira, Cape Verd and Canary Islands. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



Through the whole of England and Wales it is generally 

 distributed, but rather local in parts of Cornwall, Lincolnshire, 

 Cumberland, Anglesey, and Caernarvonshire. 



As a breeding species it becomes scarce in Scotland above 

 the Firths of Clyde and Forth, being very rare in the northern 

 parts. There are records of its occurrence from the Outer 



