BLACKCAP 
33 
an average height of three or four feet ; higher, 
that is (as a general rule), than the Whitethroat's 
and also the Garden Warbler's, but not so high as 
the Lesser Whitethroat's, which it much resembles 
in its extreme slightness. Both nest and eggs are 
often so much like those of the Garden Warbler 
that the only sure way of identifying them is to 
get a clear view of one of the parent birds, for the 
Garden Warbler pair have no such black or 
reddish-brown cap as plainly distinguishes this 
species. A Blackcap's nest is generally higher 
above the ground than a Garden Warbler's, and is 
often also rather less bulky, the Garden Warbler's 
inclining more to the appearance of the common 
Whitethroat's ; but neither distinction can be relied 
upon with safety, and there is the same kind of 
uncertainty about the colour and markings of the 
eggs. A typical Blackcap's egg is greenish or 
yellowish-white in ground colour, thickly mottled 
over with flaky spots of clear, darker brown ; the 
shell is highly polished, and there is a scarcer and 
beautiful variety in which both ground and mark- 
ings are flushed with a tinge of red. A typical 
Garden Warbler's egg has a lighter and less con- 
cealed ground colour, of a much more stained and 
muddy appearance, and with larger, darker, 
" messier "-looking mottlings ot greenish-brown 
and brown ; often, too, with one or two blurred 
D 
