Page:The British Warblers A History with Problems of Their Lives - 8 of 9.djvu/41



French, Fauvette épervière; German, Sperber-Grasmücke; Hungarian, Sávos poszáta; Italian, Calega padovana; Russian, Slavka pestrogrudaza; Swedish, Hökfärgad.

Adult Male in Spring.—The upper parts are brownish grey, rather more ash colour on the crown, rump, and upper tail-coverts. The feathers on the forehead and shoulders and the upper tail-coverts have a narrow light tip bordered with a narrow darker bar which gives to these parts a barred appearance. The flight feathers are brown, narrowly edged with whitish brown, the larger wing-coverts and innermost secondaries being tipped with white; this pattern on the secondaries, wing-coverts, and median wing-coverts forms two distinct whitish bars on the closed wing. The smaller wing-coverts are brownish grey like the back, the pattern described above being scarcely discernible, the bastard wing is dark brown edged with white, and the primary coverts brown, narrowly edged with light brown. The tail feathers are ash grey, the outermost having a narrow white edge with a conspicuous wedge-shaped white spot on the inner web, and the shafts are reddish brown. The lores are dark grey and the ear-coverts the same colour as the crown. The underparts are whitish, each feather having a dark greyish brown bar near the end which gives the crop and flanks a barred appearance. The abdomen proper is almost uniformly white. The under tail-coverts are light brown broadly tipped with white, and