PASSER ES. ( 60 ) SYLVIID^. 



THE BLACKCAP. 



MOCK NIGHTINGALE, BLACK-HEADED PEGGY. 



Sylvia Atricapilla. 



The Blackcaps in an orchard met. 

 Praising the berries while they ate ; 

 The Finch that flew her beak to whet 

 Before she joined than on the tree. 



Jean Ingelow. 



This melodious summer visitor generally arrives in Berwick- 

 shire from the south between the third week of April and 

 the third week of May, and leaves us in September. 



It is found during summer in most of the deciduous 

 plantations in the county, and especially those in policy 

 grounds and deans, where the underwood is dense and 

 intermingled with brambles and dog-roses. The Pease 

 Dean and the woods about Paxton and Whitehall are some 

 of its favourite resorts. It is one of the small birds which 

 are apparently increasing in numbers, and occupying new 

 districts where they were not previously observed.^ 



As a boy in Haddingtonshire, about thirty years ago, 

 I was constantly on the outlook for birds and their nests in 

 the district of Salton, and yet I never saw the Blackcap or 

 heard its song. Dr. Turnbull, in his Birds of East-Lothian, 

 1866, mentions it as rare, but I am informed by my friend, 



The Rev. George Cook, Longformacus, informa me that he saw a Blackcap 

 in the manse garden there in the summer 'of 1886 for the first time. It had 

 not previously been observed in that neighbourhood. 



