350 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



other at the close of the same month. The announcement gave 

 rise at the time to an expression of considerable doubt on the 

 part of one of the London critics who, indeed, did not hesitate to 

 say that Mr Osborne had made a mistake. Not long afterwards, 

 however, other specimens having been met with even later in the 

 season and in the same county, his suspicions were allayed by 

 the production of the birds themselves, and the fact was thereafter 

 made known through one of the London Magazines, that Black- 

 cap warblers could not only survive the rigours of our Scottish 

 climate in Caithness, but that they could keep themselves in good 

 condition by feeding entirely upon fruits. Here, tlien, were two 

 novelties proved ; first, that a bird previously regarded as a 

 strictly migratory species was found located during the winter 

 months in the extreme north of the Scottish mainland ; and 

 second, that it subsisted at that season upon fruits after its usual 

 insect food had failed. In this country we have been so long 

 accustomed to regard all our warblers as summer migrants, whose 

 movements were regulated by the scarcity or abundance of insect 

 life, that we must look upon this discovery of Mr Osborne as a 

 point of some interest. Since his observations were published 

 I have taken every favourable opportunity of watching the habits 

 of what may now with propriety be called our fruit-eating 

 warblers (for there are others beside the Blackcap), and I find 

 that towards the close of autumn, as insects become scarce, or 

 perhaps indeed through preference, these birds betake themselves 

 to the glens and gullies of many of our mountains and hills of 

 moderate elevation, where they flit silently from tree to tree, and 

 greedily devour quantities of the berries of the mountain ash, 

 and other fruits which are then hanging in luxuriant clusters in 

 sheltered places. Later in the season, as these haunts are more 

 exposed to the earlier winter blasts, the birds come nearer towns 

 and villages, and are then seen frequenting gardens and orchards 

 picking up what they can find, especially in those places where 

 the smaller fruits and berries have not been carefully gathered. 



The specimen which I now exhibit was observed by one of 

 the boys at Merchiston School, near Edinburgh, on the 5th 

 January, and brought down by a stone from a catapult, in the 

 use of which these boys are certainly proficient, however much 

 they may be behind in other attainments. 



I have no doubt that in many parts of Scotland the Blackcap 



