62 
Wild Birds Usefid and Injurious. 
Bometimes captured on the wing, and of wild fruits, including 
blackberries and the berries of the ivy, privet, and elder. It is 
also devoted to cultivated fruit, attacking currants, strawberries, 
raspberries and cherries, whilst, like the whitethroat, it opens 
pea-pods. Its visits to the garden, therefore, cannot be considered 
altogether desirable. 
* The Garden Warbler ( Sylvia salicaria ) in size, food and habits 
closely resembles the blackcap, but the pale brown upper parts 
are not relieved by a dark cap. Its food is, in fact, practically 
Fig. 2. — Blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla.' 
identical with that of the bird last described, and consists of 
insects, wild berries, and fruit. It is said to show a marked 
partiality for the destructive caterpillars of the white cabbage 
butterfly. Both these warblers are comparatively rare, so that 
any damage they may do is not likely to be serious, and if it 
were not for the fact that they frequently build their nests in 
thick shrubs or tangled vegetation in gardens, and that they 
make themselves conspicuous when the fruit is ripe, they 
would escape the notice of most people. Their insect-eating 
propensity and vocal power, if insufficient to atone for the loss of 
fruit for which they are responsible, at least render the debt 
against them very slight. 
1 Figs. 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 are from Yarrell’s British Birds (Gurney & 
Jackson). 
