308 SYLVIAS. 



about the middle of April, sometimes rather earlier, de- 

 pending on the state of the season, but never, according to 

 Mr. Selby, till the larch trees are visibly green ; and it 

 leaves us again, with an occasional exception, in September. 

 Mr. Lewin, some years ago, it is recorded, shot a Blackcap 

 near Dartford in the month of January ; and two or more 

 instances have occurred of specimens being obtained, and 

 others heard, during two recent successive winters, in the 

 neighbourhood of Bristol. 



Like the Nightingale, the males of this species, which 

 are readily distinguishable by their jet-black head, arrive 

 some days before the females ; and their song soon betrays 

 their retreat. They frequent woods, plantations, thick 

 hedges, orchards, and gardens. They are restless, timid, 

 and shy; and are no sooner observed, but they exhibit 

 their anxiety to gain some place of concealment by hopping 

 from branch to branch to a more secluded situation. The 

 female is equally cautious in selecting the spot for her nest, 

 and does not finally determine upon it till the expanding 

 foliage promises sufficient security, and sometimes even 

 after having commenced and abandoned a nest in two or 

 three different places. The nest is usually fixed in a bush 

 about two or three feet from the ground ; it is constructed 

 of bents and dried herbage, lined with fibrous roots mixed 

 with hair. The eggs are mostly five in number, of a pale 

 greenish white, mottled with light brown and ash colour, 

 with a few spots and streaks of dark brown ; they are nine 

 lines in length by seven lines in breadth. Some specimens 

 of the eggs of the Blackcap resemble those of the Garden 

 Warbler, the bird next to be described; and they also 

 occasionally assume a reddish tinge, apparently the effect 

 of partial incubation. 



The male Blackcap is inferior only to the Nightingale in 



