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Thrush, I know it by that peculiar inflection : yet no, it cannot be, for the sounds are not quite 

 so loud, nor is the strain so broken. The notes follow each other with rapidity, now the 

 enunciation is hurried, anon deliberate, but always distinct, and neither strained nor slurred by 

 haste. You fancy that parts of the song resemble that of the Redbreast, the Garden Warbler, 

 the Song-Thrush, and perhaps the Sky-Lark, or that it is a graceful and harmonious combina- 

 tion of the songs of these and perhaps other birds ; yet if you listen more attentively you will 

 be persuaded that the bird is no imitator, but that it sends forth in gladness the spontaneous, 

 unpremeditated, and unborrowed strains that nature has taught it to emit as the expression of 

 its feelings. 



" The song, if divided into fragments, would suffice for half a score of ordinary Warblers, 

 and is of surprising compass, and melodious beyond description. 



" None of the notes seem to resemble those of the Blackbird, although they have been so 

 represented ; nor are they so plaintive as those of the Thrush. The song is decidedly cheerful, 

 but not merry like that of the Lark, and is, therefore, not apt to cherish melancholy, but rather 

 to encourage hope, and induce a placid and contented frame of mind, in which are combined 

 admiration of the performer, and a kind of affection towards it, which renders it almost impossible 

 for you to level your death-dealing tube at it." 



The food of the Blackcap consists chiefly of insects during the spring and early summer ; and 

 as it searches for these amongst the bursting buds and fresh foliage of the trees, it does much 

 good in destroying numbers of noxious insects which otherwise would soon effect considerable 

 damage. It feeds chiefly in the trees and bushes, searching for its food amongst the foliage and 

 in the crannies of the bark of the trees, and but seldom resorts to the ground in search of small 

 worms &c. In the autumn when the fruit and berries are ripe it feeds largely on these, 

 especially on cherries, to which it is very partial, eating the fleshy portion and leaving the stones 

 hanging on the stalks ; and it also feeds on many sorts of berries, of sorts which are under 

 cultivation as well as the wild ones. If the stones are swallowed, they are rejected and cast up ; 

 and occasionally cherry-stones are swallowed and thrown up again. Naumann relates an instance 

 of a Blackcap being found dead under a cherry-tree, choked by a cherry-stone which it had 

 swallowed, and which on being thrown up had stuck firmly in its throat. 



It selects for the purposes of nidification a bush or low tree in a grove or garden, usually 

 where the bushes are somewhat scattered, and the brambles and creepers fill up between. The 

 nest is placed either in the brambles and creepers, or in one of the branches which shoot out side- 

 ways from a bush, and is somewhat loosely constructed of grass, straws, and fine roots, and lined 

 with fine bents and a few horsehairs ; and occasionally a little moss is interwoven in the external 

 portion of the structure. Two broods are raised in the season, the first eggs being generally 

 deposited late in April ; and the second nest is commenced directly the young of the first brood 

 arc able to shift for themselves. Incubation lasts a fortnight ; and both male and female take 

 their turn on the nest. Naumann affirms that the female sits from the evening throughout the 

 night up to about nine or ten o'clock in the forenoon, when she is relieved by the male, who 

 incubates during the day. 



Like those of its close relative (»S'. melanocej)hala) the eggs of the present species are subject 

 to no slight variation. The typical eggs are either like a dark Garden-Warbler's egg, or else 



