20 
THE BIRDS OF HAMPSHIRE, 
They arrive with great regularity about the middle of 
April, and usually depart in September, but one was seen 
at Porchester on December 31st, 1897, and January 4th, 
1898, which remained there for a fortnight (Stares). ^ 
Mr. Meade-Waldo says a few occasionally remain almost 
throughout the winter. 
There is an extraordinary variety in their eggs, and 
unless the bird is properly identified they may often be 
mistaken for those of the garden warbler. Reddish and 
salmon-coloured clutches of eggs are not unusual, neither 
are clutches containing an oddly-coloured egg. The nest 
of the blackcap, however, is usually constructed with a 
small quantity of moss among the other materials, which 
distinguishes it from that of the garden warbler, which 
never contains any. 
The following description of the song of the blackcap 
by Gilbert White 2 was copied by Pennant in his " British 
Zoology": "The blackcap has, in common, a full, sweet, 
deep, loud, and wild pipe ; yet that strain is of ihort 
continuance, and his motions are desultory ; but when 
that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest he 
pours forth very sweet but inward melody, and expresses 
great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior 
perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the nightingale 
excepted While they warble their throats are 
wonderfully distended." And again ^ he remarks on its 
song : " The note has such a wild sweetness that it brings 
to my mind those lines in a song in ' As You Like It ' — 
' And tune his merry note 
Unto the wild bird's throat.' " 
Shakespeare. 
^ "Zoologist." March, 1898. 
= Letter xl. to Pennant. Selborne. September 2nd, 1774. 
3 Letter iii. to Barrington. Selborne. Jan. 15th, 1770, 
