506 GREATER PETTY-CHAPS. Class II. 



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 green 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 hortensis. S. griseo-fus- orn. 507 '. id. Syn. iv. 413. 



Petty- ca su btus rufescente-alba, id. Sup. ii. 234. 



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



bus fuscis extus griseo mar- 9^5. 



ginatis, extima oblique di- Curruca. 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 





