42 WILD BIRDS 



and the Sardinian warbler's quick jumble, by com- 

 parison, seemed scarcely a song. Still the union or 

 rivalry of the three was curious and interesting. 

 They were singing against each other, and the 

 strange concert lasted for several minutes, first 

 the Sardinian warbler, then the blackcap dropping 

 out there is no singing for long against an Apennine 

 nightingale ! 



Blackcaps and serin finches are everywhere in 

 Italy, everywhere in Sicily. You need not indeed 

 go to any of the private gardens in Palermo in spring 

 to hear blackcaps and serin finches. You can 

 always hear them in the streets wherever there are 

 a few trees showered with blossom. Go into the 

 precincts of San Giovanni degli Eremeti, the most 

 perfect and exquisite building I saw in Sicily and 

 have seen anywhere, and you will find them there 

 most probably singing in the few orange and lemon 

 trees in the wonderful little Norman cloisters. It 

 is impossible to miss the blackcap in Sicily or in 

 any part of Italy I have visited. 



THE WOOD WARBLER 



At the exact spot in the belt of birch trees and 

 pines where it trilled at the opening of summer last 

 year the wood warbler is trilling now in June. I 

 remember stopping to hear the bird there ; and, 

 passing the place about the same day this year, 

 I stopped, wondering whether it had returned to its 

 haunt when from the tree tops came the sound of 

 the sylph ! 



