While the Blackcap migrates almost due north and south, the Orphean Warbler migrates westwards and northwards from the east and southeast, and _vice versâ_. In North-west India, particularly in the neighbourhood of Umballah, it is tolerably common. The Rev. Canon Tristram found it numerous in Palestine, and especially abundant under Mount Hermon. Messrs. Elwes and Buckley include it in their list of the birds of Turkey (“Ibis,” 1870, p. 19), and Lord Lilford has noted its occasional occurrence in spring in the Ionian Isles. Rüppell includes it amongst the birds of Arabia and Egypt,[15] but either it is not very common in Egypt, or it has escaped the searching eyes of many English ornithologists in that country. Mr. O. Salvin found it tolerably common in the Eastern Atlas, and it has also been met with in Tripoli (_cf._ Chambers, “Ibis,” 1867, p. 104). As it is thus found in North Africa, and, according to Professor Savi, is a summer visitant to Italy, one would naturally expect to find it in Malta; but Mr. C. A. Wright, who has paid great attention to Maltese ornithology for many years, states that he has never met with it himself, and that only one instance of its occurrence in Malta is known to him. In Spain it has been observed as a summer visitant both by Lord Lilford and Mr. Howard Saunders. The last-named naturalist says (“Ibis,” 1871, p. 212) that it nests there in May, and refers to the frequent inequality in the size of eggs in the same nest—a peculiarity which does not seem to have been previously noticed. In Portugal it appears to be only an occasional summer visitant, apparently not straying so far westward as a rule. I am not aware that it has been found further to the south-west than Morocco. Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake met with it in this country in 1867, but considered it rare.
According to the observations of Von der Mühle, in his “Monograph of the European _Sylviidæ_,” and of Captain Beavan on various birds in India (“Ibis,” 1868, pp. 73, 74), there is good reason to believe that both the Blackcap and the Orphean Warbler completely lose the black crown in winter, and reassume it at the approach of the breeding season.
Criticizing these remarks, however, the late Mr. Blyth wrote:—