NOTES AND QUERIEs. 261 
nest was taken on May 18th, about six miles from Youghal (at the estuary 
of the Blackwater, a famous locality for rare visitants). It was found by the 
above-mentioned person suspended from the shoots of a hawthorn, among 
_briars and ferns, in a tangled marshy plantation ima little dell. He saw 
both the birds, which were remarkably fearless, the female even pecking at 
his hand when he went to take the eggs. He said that the male, which 
was a beautiful songster, was ‘‘slate-coloured, with a head as black as a 
Bullfinch”; but that the head of the female (who otherwise resembled him) 
was brown. He had never seen such birds before, nor had he ever heard 
of the Blackcap. Though I have observed Irish birds for more than thirty 
years, the only Blackcap I have identified in Ireland was one, a male, which 
I found recently dead in a cow-louse here on December 18th, 1856. I do 
not know the Redstart, Garden Warbler, Reed Warbler, nor Wood Warbler 
as Irish birds. The Whitethroat, Sedge and Willow Warblers, and the 
Chiffchaff are numerous here, while I find the Grasshopper Warbler much 
commoner than I had supposed, and have got its nests and eggs from the 
man who found the Blackcaps. On June 3rd I saw the pair of Blackcaps 
above referred to, and a second nest which they had constructed about fifty 
yards from the former one in the same tangled covert. It is in a mass of 
blackberry-briars, which form the under-covert of the plantation, and is 
well concealed. The female was sitting on five eggs, similar to the former 
elutch. I soon heard the song of the male, but had I not been told what 
it was by my conductor (to whose careful observation I owe these facts) I 
should have supposed it proceeded from a Blackbird, it was so clear and 
loud. As often as I followed it the bird changed its place, eluding my 
observation for full half an hour, while it drew me farther from the nest. 
At last I got a full view of him, an unmistakable Blackcap, with his jet- 
black cap, white throat, and Warbler shape and actions, ever on the move, 
yet keeping in the shade, and avoiding observation. I have not touched 
this second nest, and trust it may lead to Blackbirds colonizing this county. 
—R. J. Ussuer (Cappagh, Co. Waterford). 
[Our correspondent has been good enough to forward the first-discovered 
nest and eggs for our inspection, and there is no doubt they have been 
correctly identified. ‘The discovery is a most interesting one.—Ep.] 
Virginian Nightingales nesting at liberty in England.— To all 
interested in the subject of acclimatising and naturalising birds, the 
following experiment seems worth relating :—A pair of Virginian Nightin- 
gales (Lowia cardinalis), or, as they are more aptly called, Red Cardinals, 
had been in a large outdoor pheasantry since February, 1883, during the 
Summer of which year, as well as the following one, they built a nest, 
though the hen neyer laid any eggs, for what reason it was difficult to find 
out, for she seemed to have every inclination to incubate. However, in the 
middle of May this year both birds accidentally escaped, and, as they 
