Page:The British Warblers A History with Problems of Their Lives - 7 of 9.djvu/96

 colour at the base. The flanges and the mouth are orange, the feet dusky flesh colour washed with lavender, the claws brown, and the soles olive yellow.

The colouring of the female is similar to that of the male. In the autumn the colouring becomes more intense, the upper parts being strongly washed with olive yellow, and the under parts rusty buff.

Nestling.— In colour the nestling is much like the adult after the autumn moult. The upper parts, however, are less olive, and the under parts more brownish. The iris is light greyish brown, the bill lavender, and the flanges light yellow. Feet are light flesh colour.

It is not a little remarkable, considering how numerous this bird is in France, Belgium and Holland, that on a few occasions only has it been known to visit our shores. Why so narrow a strip of sea should form such an impassable barrier we do not know. Northumberland, Shropshire, Norfolk, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, and probably also the Scilly Isles, all possess records of its occurrence, but no instance of its breeding.

In Spain and Portugal it is common except in the central plateau, and also in France except in the extreme west. Throughout Belgium, Holland, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Italy, it is generally distributed and common, but scarce in Denmark, and scattered over the low ground only in Switzerland. In parts of the Balkan Peninsula it is common, but very scarce in Macedonia and Greece, and though breeding in Sicily does not do so in Corsica and Sardinia. In Poland it is numerous, and we find it in the western part of the Baltic Provinces, in the provinces of Jaroslav. Smolensk. Tula and Tambov, in the north-eastern part of the provinces of Perm and Orenburg, in the delta of the River Ural, and throughout Southern Russia generally to the Caucasus. In