THE BLACKCAP. 



dicative of fear ; while the kite moves steadily from 

 the summit of the loftiest oak, the scathed crest of 

 the highest poplar, or the most elevated ash 

 circles round and round_, sedate and calm, and then 

 leaves us. I can confusedly remember a very 

 extraordinary capture of these birds, when I was a 

 boy. Roosting one winter evening on some very 

 lofty elms, a fog came on during the night, which 

 froze early in the morning, and fastened the feet of 

 the poor kites so firmly to the boughs, that some 

 adventurous youths brought down, I think, fifteen 

 of them so secured ! Singular as the capture was, 

 the assemblage of so large a number was not less 

 so, it being in general a solitary bird, or associating 

 only in pairs. 



The blackcap (motacilla atracapilla) is our con- 

 stant visitor, but very uncertain in its numbers, as 

 it fully participates in all the casualties of our 

 migratory tribes; not by any great diminution 

 probably in its winter residence, but by loss in its 

 transits of autumn or spring. We have years 

 when every little copse resounds with harmony ; at 

 other periods, only a few solitary songsters are to 

 be heard ; and the blackcap is the principal per- 

 former in the band of our domestic vocalists. In 

 the scale of music it is the third for mellowness, 

 and the third perhaps too for execution and com- 

 pass. As this melody, however, continues only 

 during the period of incubation, we hear it but for 





