The Blackcap. 51 



I am not quite sure, towever, that I should have voted 

 with the majority on the interesting occasion alluded to by 

 the poet, or that I should have permitted the untutored ap- 

 probation of a boor to influence my judgment in a contrary 

 direction. It is true, I have never attempted to keep a 

 Mghtiiigale, while I have had dozens of Blackcaps in my 

 possession at various times, and regard the latter birds with 

 the greatest favour, for I have found them easy to be reared, 

 comparatively hardy when properly treated, teachable to an 

 almost unlimited extent, singing frequently by night, as well 

 as by day, and living for a number of years in the house 

 in possession of perfect health; while it is, I believe, agreed 

 upon at all hands that the Nightingale is delicate and difiicult 

 to keep, whether reared from the nest, or captured when 

 full grown; a recent writer in a popular magazine having 

 gone so far as to say that nine out every ten Nightingales, 

 trapped in the spring or autumn, or taken from the nest, died 

 within a week of their capture. Now if that statement is 

 correct, and I have never seen it denied, the Society for the 

 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should see to it. 



The first Blackcaps I ever reared were two females that 

 were hatched in a barbeiTy bush in our garden, and jumped 

 out of their nest before they could fly, terrified by the sudden 

 intrusion upon their privacy of my baby brother, who meant 

 them no harm, but the poor little mites did not know that, 

 and a few hours after I found two of them dead on the grass 

 some little distance away from their birth-place, and the other 

 two in articulo mortis, for it seems the old ones had not 

 found them, or the poor little things were too much frightened 

 to open their mouths to be fed: however I carried these sur- 

 vivors home, and brought them up on blenoir flour and milk, 

 flies and ants' eggs, and, as I have already stated, they turned 

 out to be hens: nevertheless they sang very prettily, and in 

 the following spring made nests in their cage, and laid several 

 eggs, which of course came to nothing. I have since then 



