Page:The British Warblers A History with Problems of Their Lives - 4 of 9.djvu/17

 nape. The smallest wing-coverts are of the same colour as the sides of the face, and the remainder of the wing-coverts are dark slaty brown, each feather being broadly margined with rusty buff. The tail is greyish brown, each feather being broadly margined with the same colour as the rump, and the outermost feather is whitish buff. The under part of the tail is greyish brown, narrowly edged with light buff. The throat is light ash colour, the crop umber ash, abdomen whitish ash, and the flanks umber buff, the same colour extending to the under tail-coverts. The upper mandible is horn colour, lower light greyish flesh colour, and the iris dusky grey hazel. The feet are brownish flesh colour, and the claws grey.

On leaving the egg the bird is naked, with eyelids completely sealed. The skin is buff colour or reddish buff. At the root of the tongue, which is flesh colour, there are two darkish ash grey spots. The outer edge of the bill and the corner of the mouth are yellow, and the posterior part of the gape dull flesh colour. The feet are almost transparent buff, and the toes and claws much the same colour.

Throughout England, Wales, and Ireland it is perhaps the most common of the warblers, and even to many parts of Scotland, including the Western Isles, it is a common summer visitant, but in the extreme north it becomes less abundant and more local, being a doubtful visitor to Caithness, and a straggler only in the Shetland Islands. To the Channel Islands it is a regular summer visitant.

Over the greater part of Central and Southern Europe the bird is a common breeding species, but in the south of Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia it is not so common. In the central and southern parts of Sweden it is also common, but in the more northern parts it becomes rarer, although occurring up to 63° N. lat. In Finland it is generally distributed and in many places in the south and west, as far north as Ijo,