BLACKCAP. GARDEN WARBLER. 45 



FAMILY VIII SYL VIABLE (WARBLERS). 



GENUS XXI. CURRUCA (WARBLER). 



SPECIES 43 THE BLACKCAP. 



Curruca atracapilla. Jardine. 

 Bee fin a tete noire. Temm. 



THIS beautiful songster, whose melody is so delightful as to 

 have gained for it the distinctive appellation of the mock 

 nightingale, we but seldom hear in our island, from the rarity 

 of its occurrence. Possessing the same slight slimness of figure 

 that is so much observed in the family of the Sylviadae, the 

 blackcap is the most decided in its marking of all those spe- 

 cies. Occasionally observed, on two occasions we had the 

 pleasure of hearing the song of the blackcap in its wild state, 

 once in the vicinity of Glasnevin, and the other at Avoca, in 

 the county of Wicklow. A male specimen in our own collec- 

 tion was shot by Dr. Gilgeous at Donnybrook, near Dublin, 

 in October, 1846. As the nightingale has left our island un- 

 visited to the present, we must regret the rarity of its imi- 

 tator : 



" The sonorous blackcap from the ivy nook, 

 Superior to the woodlark and the thrush, 

 And next to Philomela, of the train 

 Of warblers, pours his sweet, melodious strain." 



The blackcap was well known to the ancients, and holds 

 an honourable place in the pages of Aristotle and the elder 

 Pliny. 



Habitat Southern Europe. 



SPECIES 44 THE GARDEN WARBLER. 

 Curruca hortensis. Bechs. 

 Bee fin fauvette. Temm. 



NOT so much favoured as England in the number and occur- 

 rence of different species of the summer-seeking Sylviadae, we 

 can only include the garden warbler as another of those rare 

 wanderers which occasionally appear in a few isolated in- 

 stances in different parts of Ireland. 



In Mr. Thompson's Fauna of Ireland we find an interesting 

 notice, from the pen of Mr. R. Parker, of Cork, a gentleman 

 whose pencil has become familiarized in delineating the native 

 birds of his own country with that perfection of touch and 



