174 NATURAL HISTORY 



The blackcap has, in common, a full, sweet, deep, 

 loud, and wild pipe ; yet that strain is of short continu- 



very singular that so common a bird as this should have been so much 

 overlooked. I make no doubt of its being a regular inmate of Selborne 

 parish. It is abundant near London. AtSpofforth I often see them about 

 the skirts of the village; sometimes a solitary individual sitting almost 

 asleep upon an exposed branch of a thorn bush, when its pure white breast 

 is very conspicuous. There never fails to be a nest of them in my garden 

 in Yorkshire: at the moment that I write this, they have a nest within 

 five yards of my chair in a double white rose bush close to my window : 

 yet Mr. Selby has omitted this species in the first edition of his British 

 Ornithology, published in 1825, saying that he is aware such a bird has 

 been found in the southern counties, but he could never meet with one. 



W, H. Herbert, dtL , 



NEST AND EGO* OP THE LESSER WJIITETHROAT. 



Its song is pleasing, but not so strong and varied as that of the white- 

 throat. It is quite distinct in form, colour, and habits. It builds in gar- 

 dens like the blackcaps, and with them attacks the fruit, though less per- 

 tinaciously, as it is very fond of flies and small caterpillars, and probably 

 on the whole does more good than harm in a garden. Gardeners indeed 

 are too apt to destroy little birds that pick a few of their cherries or cur- 

 rants, without considering the great good they do in destroying the insects 

 which would perhaps have made the fruit abortive. Its nest is very 

 small and slender, so that it may actually be seen through, and it is 

 placed in the fork of a rose bush or thorn, sometimes eight or nine feet 

 from the ground, sometimes in a low brier. It does not lay, as far as I 



