36 ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF TIIK NIGHTINGALE. 



It ceases to sing a little before Midsummer. — The music of the 

 Nightingale is rarely heard after the first, or, at most, the secondv 

 week in June ; but it appears, from Montagu's experiments, that 

 if the hen bird be taken from her nest, the male will resume his- 

 song, and will continue to sing till very late in the summer, or 

 until his notes have attracted another mate. From this, therefore, 

 it follows, that the Nightingale does not lose his power of voice 

 at Midsummer, as some have stated ; and we might consequently 

 infer, with Mr. Knapp, that the true reason of this bird always- 

 ceasing its melody at this period is, that his time is now wholly oc- 

 cupied in procuring food for his young family ; but, as it is well 

 known that caged Nightingales, which liave no nestlings to provide 

 for, invariably discontinue their song at precisely the same time 

 with the wild birds, we must, of course, endeavour to assign some 

 other cause for its silence. Probably the change which then takes 

 place in its whole system, preparatory to the autumnal renovation, 

 of plumage, affects the Nightingale more immediately than most 

 other birds, and requires the exciting cause of being in want of a 

 mate to counteract it ; yet I am aware of no species which, in ge- 

 neral, moults more easily than this, and, in confinement, none 

 suffer less during this change. 



Mai/ be closely approached when singing. — When the Nightin- 

 gale is singing, concealed in a bush, he will not suffer himself to be 

 approached too near, and, though he does not immediately fly, he 

 ceases to sing, and signifies his displeasure by a peculiar harsh croak 

 (resembling the sound carre, pronounced with a rolling of the r's) ; 

 and if, upon his repeating this three or four times, the intruder 

 should not retire, he flies, or, sometimes, merely hops circuitously 

 along the ground, to another bush ; still, if we advance very gently, 

 so that he may not be startled (and he will thus often permit of a 

 closer approach than the generality of our singing birds), he will 

 sometimes shew himself, and sing lou<Jly, within a couple of yards 

 of the spectator, when the considerable dilatation of his throat will 

 be very obvious, and when it is impossible not to admire the light- 

 ness and elegance of his form and movements, and the amazingly 

 long hops which, with effortless ease, he takes from bough to bough. 



Both sexes utter a plaintive cry when any one is near the nest. — 

 After the young are hatched, should any person approach their nest, 

 the parent Nightingales are extremely clamorous, uttering a loud 

 and very plaintive monotonous cry (resembling hweep), and repeat- 

 ing,^ at intervals, their usual harsh croak, so well known in places 

 where these birds abound. The nest is,however, most exceedingly^ 



