BEITISH SONG BIRDS. 291 



make the whole house ring again, his song is so full, so sweet, 

 so deep and loud, and so enriched with a variety of oily, silvery 

 modulations, especially that long soft shake, which, though it sinks 

 gradually into the lowest note a bird can utter, is heard as dis- 

 tinctly as the louder tones, and then just as you think it is about to 

 die away, and you begin to aniicipate the silence that must follow, 

 higher and higherswells thesong to the loftiest burst of melody, and you 

 feel as if you wouldn't part with the bird for twenty times his weight 

 in gold. When singing it distends its little throat, while the whole 

 body quivers with delight, telling that it feels as much pleasure 

 itself as it gives to the listener. Gilbert White, whose "Natural 

 History of Selborne" every boy ought to read, for the sake of its 

 beautiful descriptions of the habits of birds and animals, speaking 

 of the blackcap, says its "note has such a wild sweetness that it 

 always brings to my mind those lines in a song in Shakspeare's ' As 

 You Like It 1 



"And tune his merry note, 

 Unto the sweet bird's throat." 



And I have no doubt in my own mind that Shakspeare was listening 

 to the singing of the blackcap, or called to memory its notes, as he 

 had often heard them when a boy in the green fields that spread 

 around his native place, when he composed that beautiful and simple 

 song which begins with 



" Under the greenwood tree, 

 Who loves to lie with me." 



The back and wings of the blackcap are of an olive grey, throat and 

 breast of a silvery grey, belly and vent white, sides of the head and 

 back of the neck ash colour, and the top of its head black as night, 

 whence its name. The female is a little larger than the male, and 

 her distinctive marks are the cap brown, the upper part of her body 

 reddish grey, inclining to olive, cheeks and throat light grey, breast, 

 sides, and thighs light grey, tinged with olive, and her belly reddish 

 white ; she lays generally once a year, but sometimes twice ; the 

 nest is well built, and is commonly found in some low bush or shrub. 

 The eggs, four or five in number, are of a pale reddish-brown, dashed 

 with spots of the same hue, but darker. It is very fond of ivy- 

 berries, and often builds in the ivy, when not too near the ground. 

 Its favourite haunt is a garden or orchard, where, during the breed- 

 ng season, it sings from morning to night. If you bring up the 

 young ones, it is necessary to give them white bread soaked in milk, 

 and if they are kept near other birds they will readily imitate their 

 notes. If you are uncertain which birds are males, for until the first 

 moulting both sexes agree in plumage, take a few brown feathers 

 from the head, and their places will be supplied by black ones, if the 

 birds are males ; the song likewise will infallibly show the sex, as 

 the males begin to sing as soon as they can feed themselves. Old 

 birds are usually caught by nooses in the autumn, and they should 

 then be fed upon elderberries and meal worms for a few days, so as 

 gradually to bring them to their artificial food ; this food should be 

 bruised hemp- seed, and a paste made of bread soaked in water, and 



