68 BBITI8H BIRDS 



to tlie conclusion that, speaking of warblers only, there are at least 

 half a hundred willow-wrens, and perhaps twenty whitethroats, to 

 one blackcap. Another curious point about the blackcap is that it 

 appears to be almost unknown to the country people. It is a rare 

 thing to find a rustic, man or boy, who knows it by that or any other 

 name, though he may be quite familiar with the redstart and 

 whitethroat. On these last two points I find that my experience 

 coincides with that of John Burroughs, the American writer on bird 

 life, in the accounts of his observations on British song-birds. 

 There is a third point on which I also agree with him ; this, how- 

 ever, is not a question of fact, but of opinion or of individual taste, 

 and refers to the merit of the blackcap as a singer. His is a song 

 which has always been very highly esteemed, and it has often been 

 described as scarcely inferior to that of the nightingale. Gilbert 

 White of Selbome described it as ' a full, deep, sweet, loud, wild 

 pipe ; yet that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are 

 desultory ; but when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in 

 earnest, he pours forth very sweet, but inward, melody, and expresses 

 great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior, perhaps, to 

 those of any of our warblers, the nightingale excepted.' After 

 reading such a description it is a disappointment to hear the 

 song. Nevertheless, it is very beautiful, and given out with im- 

 mense energy, as the bird sits on a spray with throat puffed out, 

 and moves its heaid, sometimes its whole body, vigorously from side 

 to side. The song is a clear warble composed of about a dozen 

 notes, rapidly enunciated, loud, free, of that sweet, pure quality 

 characteristic of the melody of our best warblers. The strain is 

 short, and repeated from time, to time, the intervals often being filled 

 by lower notes, sweet and varied — the * inward melody ' which 

 White describes. Burroughs's description of the song is as follows : 

 * While sitting here I saw, and for the first time heard, the black- 

 capped warbler. I recognised the note at once by its brightness 

 and strength, and a faint suggestion in it of the nightingale's ; but it 

 was disappointing : I had expected in it a nearer approach to its 

 great rival. ... It is a ringing, animated strain, but as a whole 

 seemed to me crude, not smoothly and finely modulated. I could 

 name several of our own birds that surpass it in pure music. Like 

 its congeners, the garden warbler and the whitethroat, it sings with 

 great emphasis and strength, but its song is silvern, not golden.' 

 This account of the blackcap's song is interesting as comuig firom 

 a foreigner who has paid great attention to the bird music of his 



