104 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
The nest is placed on the ground amongst the 
roots of trees or upon a hedge-bank: it is made of 
loose herbage, rushes and grass, and dry leaves, 
principally oak, and is lined with fine grass.* 
In plumage this bird is, as I said before, dull and 
uniform in its colouring; the beak is brown; irides 
hazel; head, neck, back, scapulars and wing-coverts 
brown; rump, tail-coverts and the portion of the 
tail-feathers next to the body reddish brown; rest of 
the tail-feathers and quills brown; throat and all 
the under parts silvery grey, the breast being a 
shade or two darker than the rest; legs, toes and 
claws brown. ‘ The young birds have buff-coloured 
spots on the tips of the feathers of the upper surface 
of the body, those on the under surface have dark 
margins.” t 
The egg of the Nightingale is a uniform olive- 
brown, without any markings. 
Buackeap, Curruca atricapilla. The Blackcap 
is both more numerous and more generally spread 
over the country than the Nightingale, which it 
nearly, if not quite, equals in song. It is a migra- 
tory species, arriving in this country about April: 
the earliest note I have of its arrival was the 2nd of 
April, in 1867; but this appears to have been an 
exceptional year with some of our migratory birds, 
* Hewitson. 
+ Yarrell, vol. i., p. 825. 
