The Vvarblers. 
i9i 
Young'. — Both males and females are alike in having the 
cap rusty-coloured, therein resembling the old female. The 
back is more olive-brown than in the old birds, and there is 
no grey on the neck, which is coloured like the back. There 
is considerable doubt as to the way in which the young male 
gains his first full black-headed plumage, and Mr. Seebohm 
mentions his having secured a specimen in Heligoland, on the 
and of October, which had a black head, but with every 
feather edged with rusty-brown. Such specimens are not un- 
frequently shot in the winter quarters of the species, and if, as 
must undoubtedly be the case, the Blackcap, like other 
Warblers, goes through an entire spring moult, the blackish 
head would be worn through the first winter, and the black 
cap assumed in the following spring by a moult, or, as Nau- 
mann declares, by a partial change of feathers. This is, 
however, by no means the invariable method of passing from 
the \oung plumage to that of the adult, for there is in the 
collection of the British Museum, a young male caught at 
Lancing on the 13th of August, which is In full moult, and has 
nearly assumed the perfect black head of the adult, without 
any brown-tipped feathers. The birds which exhibit the last- 
named peculiarity may be those of later broods. 
Note. — The black cap of the male, and (lie rufous cap of the female 
distinguish the Blackcap from all the other Warblers, except the Orphean 
Warbler, which also has a black head. As already, stated the. grey throat 
of the Blackcap will always distinguish it from that species, in the 
wing the fourth and fifth primary-quills are equal and longest, and the 
second primary is a little longer than the sixth ; the first, or bastard, 
primary, extends about 0'i5 inch beyond the primary coverts. 
Range in Great Britain. — A summer visitor, found throughout 
England and Wales, but becoming rarer in Scotland, visiting, 
however, the northern parts and the Orkneys and Shetland 
Isles on the autumn migration, but not breeding, as a rule, 
beyond the Firths of Clyde and Forth. In Ireland it also 
nests, and appears to be more or less sparingly distributed. 
Range outside the British Islands. — Pretty generally distributed 
throughout Europe, during the summer ranging north to 66° 
in Scandinavia, in Russia to 62°, and in the Ural Mountains 
to 57 0 N. lat. In the collection of Dr. Slovzow, at Omsk, 
is a specimen said to have been obtained in the neighbour - 
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