the blackcap. 
47 
Abyssinia, and along the Red Sea, coming from the south in February and March. 
Bishop Mant gives a very faithful sketch of the Blackcaps life in England in the 
following pretty lines :— 
“ Mid the fruit-trees’ blooming bowers, 
Where now the warm prolific hours 
Tempt him the ivy buds to quit, 
And through the flowery orchard flit 
Or garden, for his filmy prey, 
Enlivened by the sunny ray, 
The Blackcap see! And now with trill 
Of wild note from his mellow bill 
He cheers, and now with gnat or fly 
Caught sporting in the azure sky, 
Attent his brooding consort feeds. 
And, as the nestling task proceeds, 
Oft may you mark his sable crown 
Exchanged for hers of russet brown.” 
The nest is usually placed in a hedge or low bush a few feet above the ground, 
and is built of bents and dry herbage, with a lining of fine roots and hair. The eggs 
are five or six in number, and differ greatly in colour, usually falling under one of 
two types. They are either pale greenish-white variously mottled with several shades 
. , d r pa ie crimson hue mottled with darker reddish- 
of brown, or are ot a ngni reu u b 
brown or purple. The Blackcap is a favourite cage-bird, not merely from its song, 
but from the friendly disposition it shows. On the Continent a still worse fate 
too often befalls it. It is killed as a beccafico, or fig-eater; all fruit-eating birds, 
, i-.- fAr tbp table coming- under this appellation in Italy, 
when fat and in good condition for the taoie, coi & be y 
,, , , .i Aristotle and Pliny was that beccaficoes and 
A very old article of folk-lore both with Aristotle an y 
. , <<The bird is a beccafico,” they say, “at the be- 
Blackcaps change into each other. 
... J Hiarkran when it ends.” The true beccafico is said to be 
ginning of autumn, and a Blackcap wnen 
• ^ A Warhler a near relative of the Blackcap’s, and of much 
the Sylvia hortensis, Garden Warbler, a nea 
, . . , , Tl . jc also a well-known English spring visitor. Jesse 
the same retiring habits. It is aiso 
, . , r _ on£r of the Blackcap before it pairs ; afterwards its 
speaks of the “ love-laboured song oi 
, f ti„ nr so loudly. Mr. Dixon (“ Bird Life,” p. ioo) has 
voice is not heard so frequently or so iouu y 
i nirture of the Blackcap. After impressing upon 
recently drawn from nature a capital picture i B s H 
bp continues:—“You find he sings as he 
the observer the need of cautious approach, he 
, • ,- c cpurch for insects, or remains stationary for minutes 
wanders over the branches in his search ior , , ,, 
, .1 i,: Q notes his little throat quivering, his head 
together, engaged in pouring forth his notes, w . ° 
., oc rnnscious of your presence, and his jet-black plumage 
turning from side to side, as if 
, o-rpens of the vernal vegetation around. And then 
contrasting richly with the golden greens oi tne 
