The Black-Cap. 



231 



" Now is the pleasant time, 



The cool, the silent, save where silence yields, 

 To the night-warbling bird, that, now awake, 

 Tunes sweetest his love-laboured song." 



MILTON. 



" How all things listen while thy muse complains, 

 Such silence waits on Philomela's strains, 

 In some still evening, when the whispering breeze 

 Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees." 



POPE. 



There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's slream, 



And the Nightingale sings round it all the year long ; 



In the days of my childhood, 't was like a sweet dream 

 To sit in the roses, and hear the bird's song. 



That bower and its music I never forget, 



But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year, 



I think, Is the Nightingale singing there yet? 

 Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer?" 



MOORE. 



THE BLACK-CAP, (Curruca atricapilla,) 



Is a very small warbler, not weighing above half-an- 

 ounce. The top of the head is black, whence he takes 

 his name; the neck ash-coloured, the back an ashy-brown, 

 the wings of a dusky colour, the tail nearly the same ; 

 the nether part of the neck, throat, and upper part of 

 the breast of a pale ash colour ; the lower part of the 

 belly white. 



The Black-cap visits us about the middle of April, 

 and retires in September; it frequents gardens, and 

 builds its nest near the ground. The female lays five 



