142 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



is much the same as it is in Cumberland, of which it is written 

 that '■ the Lesser AVliitethroat is a very scarce summer visitant, 

 tolerably established in the Lake District, and breeding irregu- 

 larly in the north of the county" {Birds of Cumberland, p. 6). 

 It may be that this species has a distaste to flying oversea, 

 and so it journeys along over English land, and continues its 

 way across the border into Eskdale, without deviating west- 

 wards across the firth in any but exceptional instances. It is 

 probable that the sparse colony in Eskdale is the most northerly 

 breeding limits of the species in Great Britain at present, but, 

 like others of the Sylviidae, it may any summer extend its bounds. 



IV. — The Blackcap. 



(Sylvia atricapilla.) 



When Sir William Jardiue wrote his History of British Birds, 

 in 1844, he said of the Blackcap that " in our locality (that is, 

 Dumfriesshire) it has only apj^eared within these few years, 

 which may be perhaps owing to the gradual increase of more 

 extensive shrubbery and plantations, giving it suitable food and 

 retirement " {Brit. Birds, Vol. II., p. 130). 



Nowadays it is not at all scarce, and is of general distribu- 

 tion in copsewoods and other suitable situations. In years 

 when the Garden Warbler is abundant it outnumbers the 

 Blackcap, but the numbers of the Blackcap do not fluctuate 

 so markedly, and in most years it is decidedly more abundant 

 than the Garden Warbler. 



Although not quite so unapproachable as the other, the 

 Blackcap seems to frequent spots deeper in the recesses of 

 copses and plantations, the tangled thickets of briars, brambles, 

 and wild roses met with in extensive game covers being most 

 favourite haunts. 



It arrives much earlier than the Garden Warbler, and I have 

 noted fine old males by mid-April busy feeding amono'st the 

 opening buds on a sunny morning, when immigration was much 

 in evidence, chirping and hopping about the branches with 

 erected hood, in a particularly lively manner, and showing no 

 trace of the fatigue which some sentimental writers are so fond 

 of weaving into the phenomena of the migration movement. 



They stay long with us in Kirkcudbrightshire, in autumn 



