BLACKCAP M'ARBLER. 281 



The Blackcap is a true Sylvan Warbler, visiting this 

 country from the South and East every spring, arriving about 

 the middle of April, sometimes rather earlier, depending on 

 the state of the season, but never, according to Mr. Selby, 

 till the larch trees are visibly green ; and it leaves us again, 

 with an occasional exception, in September. Mr. Lewin, 

 some years ago, it is recorded, shot a Blackcap near Dartford 

 in the month of January ; and two or more instances have oc- 

 curred of specimens being obtained, and others heard, during 

 two recent successive winters, in the neighbourhood of Bristol. 

 Like the Nightingale, the males of this species, which are 

 readily distinguishable by their jet-black head, arrive some 

 days before the females ; and their song soon betrays their 

 retreat. They frequent woods, plantations, thick hedges, 

 orchards, and gardens. They are restless, timid, and shy ; 

 and are no sooner observed, but they exhibit their anxiety to 

 gain some place of concealment by hopping from branch to 

 branch to a more secluded situation. The female is equally 

 cautious in selecting the spot for her nest, and does not 

 finally determine upon it till the expanding foliage promises 

 sufficient security, and sometimes even after having com- 

 menced and abandoned a nest in two or three different 

 places. The nest is usually fixed in a bush about two or 

 three feet from the ground ; it is constructed of bents and 

 dried herbage, lined with fibrous roots mixed with hair. 

 The eggs are mostly five in number, of a pale greenish white, 

 mottled with light brown and ash colour, with a few spots 

 and streaks of dark brown ; they are nine lines in length by 

 seven lines in breadth. Some specimens of the eggs of the 

 Blackcap resemble those of the Garden Warbler, the bird 

 next to be described ; and they also occasionally assume a 

 reddish tinge, apparently the effect of partial incubation. 



The male Blackcap is inferior only to the Nightingale in 

 the quality of his song. White has described the tones of 



