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ations, and orchards, where it conceals itself amongst the foliage. 
The song of this bird is very rich, sprightly, warbling and delicate; 
it sings not only by day, but sometimes during the hours of dark- 
ness. Besides singing its own song, the Blackcap imitates that of 
other birds, and, as I can personally testify, so admirably as to 
deceive the ear of the listener. Its song is generally given from 
some commanding perch, or if the tree be not very high, from the 
_ top twig; or from the top of some large bush. While the bird -is 
trilling, in which it excels every songster of the grove in rapidity 
and clearness, and in the swells and cadences which it gives to the 
-same trill, the throat has a strong convulsive motion, and the whole 
bird appears to be worked into a state of great excitement. It has 
the wildest and most witching notes of all our warblers ; it has not 
the ineffably sweet chaunt of the garden warbler, but its notes take 
us by surprise, and the changes, especially the trills, are finer than 
those of any other bird. One of its notes is a particularly long 
soft shake, which sinks gradually into the lowest strain, though 
every note is perfectly distinct, till, just as it is dying away, the 
cadence again rises, and swells into a full burst of loud and joyful 
melody. On our first field day down the Gelt last summer, while 
Mr. Clifton Ward was delivering a short lecture on the sandstone, 
there was a Blackcap carolling most beautifully on a tree hard by. 
I don’t know whether anybody else noticed it or not, but its song 
tang splendidly in my ears. 
A little above Rose bridge, up the Caldew, there is a dense 
overgrown thicket of black-thorn bushes, where a few Blackcaps 
sing and breed. I recommend any person wishing to hear the 
song of the Blackcap to go there, and I am sure they will not 
regret it. I remember a few years ago coming from Sebergham 
down by the river side one fine summer evening, stopping for a 
_ couple of hours entranced, listening to their enchanting melody. 
The nest is studiously concealed, and I have known the bird 
desert it after I had inspected it. It builds amongst the thick 
intertwining bushes of the black thorn, or amidst dense brambles. 
It is a well built structure, composed externally of coarse dry stems 
of grasses, and the deserted cocoons of insects; internally it is 
