and some of the islands of the Mediterranean, it frequently
winters, and in such localities it would seem to emigrate for
the summer.
In the adult male, the bill is dark horn-colour: the irides
dark brown: all the upper part of the head above the eyes
jet-black; nape ash-grey; hack, wings and tail above, ash-
brown, the last being barred with a darker shade; chin,
greyish-white; throat and breast, ash-grey; belly and lower
wing-coverts white ; quills beneath, shining grey : legs and
toes lead-colour; claws brown.
The whole length five inches and three-quarters. From
the carpus to the end of the wing, two inches and three-
quarters ; the second primary shorter than the fourth or
fifth, but longer than the sixth.
The female is larger than the male—a thing very remarkable
among birds of this family, measuring six inches and
one-quarter; the top of the head reddish-brown, and the
rest of the plumage more tinged with brown than in the
male.
Young birds resemble the adult female, but the hood is
not so conspicuous : the males, of the earlier broods certainly,
put on the black cap and grey mantle before leaving
this country, but they are said not to acquire the white
belly till after their second summer. I t would, singularly
enough, seem that in winter some if not all of the males
lose their black caps, and have their heads coloured like
those of the females. A few of them even reappear in Europe
in this guise, and hence has originated the supposed species,
Sylvia rubricapilla of Landbek (Yog. Wiirtemb. p. 44);
but the matter requires fuller investigation.
olive-green on the hack, and wants the barring on the tail above. The islanders
believe that when there are more than four eggs in a Blackcap’s nest one of them
always produces a bird more or less of this colour. The ben does not seem to be
affected in like manner.
S y lvia o r p i ie a , Temminck.*
THE ORPHEAN WARBLER.
Gurruca ovphea.
T h e occurrence of this species in Yorkshire was announced
in 1849 by the late Sir William Milner, and a specimen,
said to have been obtained in a small plantation near
Wetherby, July 6th, 1848, is preserved in the collection
he made. “ My bird is evidently a female,” he wrote
(Zool. p. 2588), “ and was observed in company with its
mate for a considerable time before it was shot.” From the
state of its plumage, he thought that it had been engaged
in incubation. In June, 1866, a young bird was caught near
Holloway in Middlesex, and was kept alive, by Sergeant-
Major Hanley, for nearly six months, as the Editor was
kindly informed by Mr. Blytla, who carefully examined the
example. Mr. Harting, in his useful ‘ Handbook of British
* Man. d’Orn. p. 107 (1815).