85 



BLACKCAP. 



BLACKCAP WAKBLER. MOCK NIGHTINGALE. 

 PLATE CXXI. 



Sylvia atricapilla, PENNANT. JENYNS. 



Motacilla atricapilla, MONTAGU. BEWICK. 



Motacilla mosquito, GMELIX. 



Curruca atricapilla, GOULD. FLEMING. 



THE nest, built about the end of May or the beginning of June, is 

 commonly placed in a bramble or other bush, sometimes in a honey- 

 suckle, a raspberry, or currant tree, about two or three feet or rather 

 more from the ground; sometimes among nettles. It is made of dry 

 grass and small fibrous roots, with occasionally a little moss and hair 

 the latter as a lining, and the outer parts cemented together with 

 spiders 5 webs and wool. It is strong and tolerably compact, though 

 slight. Anything like meddling with it, or intruding upon it, is jealously 

 watched, and the smallest disturbance causes the nest to be forsaken. 

 Several in fact are frequently abandoned, either from apprehension or 

 caprice, before they have been finished. Alfred Newton, Esq., of 

 Elveden Hall, near Thetford, mentions in the ' Zoologist/ page 1024, 

 his having known a nest to be found there on the llth. of March, 

 1845, which contained an egg at that early date. 



The eggs, usually four or five in number, are of a pale greenish 

 white colour, mottled with light brown and grey, with a few spots and 

 streaks of dark brown. They vary a good deal both in size and shape. 



Frederick Stafford, Esq., of De Warren House, Northfleet, Kent, 

 has informed me of his having obtained from the county of Norfolk, 

 four eggs of this species of a beautiful salmon-colour, in no way the 

 effect of incubation, as only one egg had been deposited when the nest 

 was first discovered. This pink variety is not very unfrequent. J. A. 

 Drake, Esq. has also forwarded me a good variety. 



