18 BIKDS OF LANCASHIRE. 



Urmston it only occurs on migration, but approaching 

 Manchester on the south side it nests regularly, having 

 formerly been much more plentiful than now. It is of 

 retiring habits, and, aAvay from the towns, is perhaps as 

 numerous as it ever was in recent times, this at least 

 being the case in the neighbourhood of Clitheroe. The 

 eggs, four or five in number, are laid late in May or 

 early in June, and the male will sometimes take a share 

 of the duties of incubation. Mr. Hugh P. Hornby 

 informs me that once at St. Michael's he saw a male 

 unmistakeably simjinfi while so engaged. There is very 

 much in common between the Blackcap and the Garden- 

 Warbler, and I do not believe their nests and eggs can 

 be identified of themselves, even by the most practised 

 eye : the notes, too, are so similar that only the best 

 ears can separate them, but the Blackcap's are a little 

 fuller and richer. Both species have the habit of 

 .sticking up bits of dried grass in the brambles whose 

 vicinity they are frequenting, as if they had begun 

 building a nest, and then become dissatisfied with the 

 situation ; the perfect nest is sure not to be far off. 

 When the young of the Blackcap are fledged, and the 

 old birds bring food to them after they have left the 

 nest, the latter utter sounds exactly like the " mewing " 

 of kittens. It is this bird, together with the Garden- 

 and Sedge-Warblers, which has so often been taken for 

 the Nightingale. 



GARDE N-WAEBLE Pt. 



Sylvia hortensis, Bechstein. 



This species was stated by Montagu (" Dictionary of 

 British Birds," 1802) to have been first discovered in 



