308 SYLVIAD A. 
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 Blackeap 
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 Blackeap is inferior only to the Nightingale in 
