THE BLACKCAP 71 



cup, with walls externally composed of fine dry tough grass, more rarely with 

 an admixture of straw, internally of fine grass, root-fibre and horsehair; the 

 outside is sometimes interwoven with a little moss and always strengthened 

 and bound to the supporting twigs by woollen thread or silk from the cocoons 

 of some spider or caterpillar: in some nests, however, this thread is very 

 scanty and can only be detected by carefully examining them with a lens, 

 whereas in others it gives the outer walls a fluffy appearance to the naked eye. 



The eggs vary in number from four to five; in size they are tolerably 

 uniform, those of young birds being slightly smaller than those deposited by 

 older individuals : in colouring they exhibit considerable variability ; so much 

 so that the tyro, unacquainted with the bird itself, its habits, or its nest, 

 might take specimens which, by comparison with imperfect illustrations, he 

 would perchance identify as those of the Garden Warbler, Greater Whitethroat, 

 Spotted Flycatcher and Titlark : even the experienced birdsnester unless aware 

 of the different character of the structures formed by the two species might 

 hesitate in deciding between some eggs of the Blackcap and those of the 

 Garden Warbler. The ground-tint of the eggs is either chalky white, greenish 

 white, pale buff, brownish buff, or flesh pink ; the surface is more or less 

 densely spotted, blotched and streaked with soft greyish olive, earth-brown, 

 smoky brown, or (in the pink eggs) dull mahogany red, giving the egg the 

 appearance of having been smeared with blood ; above these again are sprinkled 

 little spots and thread-like lines of black, or black-brown, often placed in the 

 centre of a patch of the paler colouring which they serve to intensify. 



The flesh-coloured variety, which somewhat vaguely resembles the egg of the 

 Spotted Flycatcher, is rare ; the only two nests purely of this type which I ever 

 obtained, were probably the produce of the same pair of birds in succeeding 

 years ; the two nests being situated near the top of the same rough hedge outside 

 a small wood at Tunstall in Kent; the first I took on the 24th May, 1877, the 

 second on the 2Qth May, 1878 : those of the later clutch are slightly larger and 

 less pyriform than those of the previous year. Another variety, almost equally 

 rare, has the ground-tint brownish buff, so densely mottled and blotched with 

 brownish russet that, but for its minute black markings, it might almost be 

 mistaken for some eggs of the Tree- Pipit. 



Both sexes incubate, but the male bird is more frequently seen on the nest 

 than the female ; it is therefore probable that, as in the case of Doves, the hen 

 sleeps on the nest and gives up her place to the cock, for day-duty, after he has 

 finished his breakfast, only retuniing from time to time to enable him to feed. 



The nest of the Blackcap is not only built about a fortnight earlier than that 



