104 BIEDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



The nest is placed on the ground amongst the 

 roots of trees or upon a hedge-bank : it is made of 

 loose herbage, rushes and grass, and dry leaves, 

 principally oak, and is lined with fine grass.* 



In plumage this bird is, as I said before, dull and 

 uniform in its colouring ; the beak is brown ; irides 

 hazel ; head, neck, back, scapulars and wing-coverts 

 brown; rump, tail-coverts and the portion of the 

 tail-feathers next to the body reddish brown ; rest of 

 the tail-feathers and quills brown; throat and all 

 the under parts silvery grey, the breast being a 

 shade or two darker than the rest ; legs, toes and 

 claws brown. " The young birds have buff- coloured 

 spots on the tips of the feathers of the upper surface 

 of the body, those on the under surface have dark 

 margins." f 



The egg of the Nightingale is a uniform olive- 

 brown, without any markings. 



BLACKCAP, Curruca atricapilla. The Blackcap 

 is both more numerous and more generally spread 

 over the country than the Nightingale, which it 

 nearly, if not quite, equals in song. It is a migra- 

 tory species, arriving in this country about April : 

 the earliest note I have of its arrival was the 2nd of 

 April, in 1867; but this appears to have been an 

 exceptional year with some of our migratory birds, 



* Hewitson. 



f Yarrell, vol. i., p. 325. 



