506 GREATER IPETTY-CHAPS. Class 11. 



pipe ; yet the strain is of short continuance, 

 and its motions are desultory : but when it 

 sits calmly, and in earnest engages in song, 

 it pours forth very sweet but inward melody, 

 and expresses a great variety of soft and gentle 

 modulations, superior perhaps to those of any 

 of our warblers, the nightingale excepted; 

 while it warbles, its throat is wonderfully dis- 

 tended. 



The black-cap frequents orchards and gar- 

 dens. Last spring we discovered the nest of 

 this bird in a spruce fir, about two feet from 

 the ground ; the outside was composed of the 

 ' ' dried stalks of the goose grass, with a little wool 



and gi'een moss round the verge ; the inside was 

 lined with fibres of roots, thinly covered with 

 black horse hair. There were in it five eggs of 

 a pale reddish brown, mottled with a deeper 

 color, and sprinkled with a few dark spots. 



5. Greater Sylvia hortensls. S. griseo-fus- orn. 507. id. Syn. iv. 413. 



Petty- ^a subtus rufescente-alba, id. Sup. ii. 234. 



superciliis albidis, rectrici- Motacilla hortensis. Gm. Lin. 

 bus fuscis extus grlseo mar- 955. 



ginatis, extima oblique di- Cunuca. Brisson. iii. 372. 



midiato alba. Lath. Ind. La Fauvette. Hist, d'ois. v. 

 . . . • . ... 117. PI- Enl. 579. f. 1. 



[THIS charming songster was first observed in 

 Lancashire, by the late Sir Ashton Lever, and 



