OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING 



BIRDS, :::.:::: ,vr- 



BLACKCAP, 



THE Blackcap is a bird I always associate with a 

 favourite old Surrey orchard beside the placid river 

 Mole, where I first heard its wild sweet song, and 

 saw its nest and eggs, years and years ago. Although 

 pretty generally distributed, there are many dis- 

 tricts in which I have neither seen nor heard it, 

 in spite of the fact that they appeared to furnish 

 suitable conditions of cover, water, and so forth. 

 It breeds sparingly in certain parts of Scotland 

 and Ireland, and throughout suitable districts of 

 Wales, and is a lover of small woods and spinnies 

 with plenty of undergrowth, shrubberies, old 

 orchards, and gardens, and bits of waste land 

 with plenty of brambles, nettles, and bushes near 

 to some sluggish stream. 



Its nest is composed of straws, fibrous roots, 

 and dead grass, often intermixed with cobwebs, 

 and is lined with hair. It is a slight structure 

 placed at varying heights of from two to ten or 

 twelve feet from the ground, amongst briars, thick 

 hedgerows, brambles, nettles, gooseberry, and other 

 small bushes. Our illustration was secured at 

 Kainsworth Lodge, Nottinghamshire. 



The eggs of the Blackcap number five or six, 

 and are subject to considerable variation in ground 

 colour and markings. One type is greyish- white, 

 B 



