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Perching Birds. 
The Blackcap ( Sylvia atricapilla). This beautiful songster is distributed over 
the greater part of England, Wales and Ireland in summer, but does not nest beyond 
the south of Scotland, occurring in the northern parts of the latter kingdom on the 
autumn migration. It extends throughout Europe in summer, as far east as the 
Caucasus and Persia, and winters in North East Africa and Senegambia. 
The Blackcap’s song is considered by many observers to equal that of the 
Nightingale, and it certainly sings in a more sustained manner. The male takes his 
share in hatching out the eggs, and my experience in the South of England is that he 
is more often seen brooding than his red-capped mate, and the birds sit so close that 
they are easy of observation. The nest is an extremely slight affair, made of dry 
grass with a little moss, a few cobwebs, and sparsely lined with horse-hair. It is 
placed in small bushes, such as wild-growing privet or brambles, sometimes among 
the slender twigs of a small tree or among the dense ‘ growers’ at the foot of an old elm, 
where the accumulation of dead leaves helps to conceal it. The eggs are from four 
to six in number, olive-brown or white, or salmon-pink in ground colour, varying 
both in tint and markings to a remarkable degree, the spots and blotches being olive- 
brown or grey or reddish-brown, with occasional black spots. 
the latter. The under parts are ochreous-buff, with the centre of the breast and 
abdomen greyish-white, and the under wing-coverts and axillaries orange-buff. 
This last character will generally distinguish the species. Young and old birds, after 
the autumn moult, are more russet brown and not so olive as in the breeding 
plumage. The Garden-Warbler is a summer visitor to Europe, extending to Western 
Siberia, and it winters in South Africa. It is found over the greater part of England, 
and nests in Southern Scotland, but becomes less frequent in our northern districts, 
and is rare and local in Ireland. 
The food of the species consists almost entirely of insects, but in the autumn it 
frequents elder bushes along with the Blackcaps, and feeds on the berries. As a rule 
it is a shy and retiring bird, and its song is only heard from the depths of the 
thickets which it loves to frequent. Like the Blackcap, it makes a slight and artless 
nest of dry grass and a few rootlets, with a little moss and a lining of horsehair, 
Sometimes the nest is suspended in nettles, like a Whitethroat’s, but at other times 
it is built in the thin twigs of a blackberry or elder bush. The eggs are from four to 
six in number, and resemble greatly those of the Blackcap, though the markings are, 
as a rule, somewhat coarser. 
The Dartford Warbler (Melizophilus undatus). The present species is a dark- 
coloured kind of Whitethroat with a longer tail than in these birds, the tail exceeding 
the wing in length. The general colour is a dark slaty-grey, the under surface 
THE GARDEN- 
WARBLER. 
( Sylvia simplex.) 
This plain-plumaged little bird is also a beautiful songster, 
and it much resembles the Blackcap in habits. It is, however, 
very simply coloured, being olive-brown above, with the head ol 
the same tint as the back, and the wings and tail also resembling 
