ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OP THE NIGHTINGALE. 33 



Evinces no hostility to birds of any other species. — Like Robins, 

 and most other birds nearly allied to the latter, two Nightin- 

 gales of the same sex can never be kept together in a single cage 

 (excepting when very young), or one would soon destroy the 

 other. Yet I have often kept thera in the same cage with birds of 

 various other species, to the presence of which they are quite indif- 

 ferent. " A Nightingale," observes the Hon. and Rev. W. Her- 

 bert, " which had lived two years in a cage full of Hrds, in perfect 

 amity with them, and even suffered the common Wrens to jump 

 and rub themselves on its back, instantly attacked, in the most vio- 

 lent manner, another Nightingale which was j^aced in the cage/' 

 Like Robins, they frequently fight very desperate battles when one 

 intrudes a little upon another's territory. 



Its periods of arrival and departure, — The Nightingale is heard 

 mostly, for the first time, in the neighbourhood of London, about 

 the 14th of April ; sometimes a few days earlier, but that is the 

 day upon which those who make a trade of catching them depend 

 on their arrival. I have generally first heard them about the 17th. 

 In The Naturalist's Calendar, of White, of Selborne, the period of 

 their first appearance is extended from the first of April to the same 

 day of the following month.* They depart in September, I have reason 

 to believe singly, and not in families, as is stated by Bechstein. It 

 would be contrary to the whole tenor of the Nightingale's habits to 

 assemble even in small societies, and at variance, also, with those of 

 the birds to which it is most allied. In Italy, they are said to arrive 

 in March, and depart in November ; from which, at first sight, we 

 might be naturally led to infer, with M. Bechstein, that they pro- 

 ceed, by slow journeys, overland, though I do not believe this to be 

 the case, for reasons it will be more convenient to mention when I 

 come to treat more particularly on the nature of the migratory iis- 

 stinct. 



Has been noticed, in the south of England, on New Year'^s day.^- 

 A few very rare instances have been recorded of tliis bird remaining 

 througlj the winter, in the southern counties of England. The 

 poet Cowper addresses some stanzas " To the Nightingale, which 

 the a-uthor heard singing on New Year's day, 17^2;" and Mr. 

 Newman, in The Magazine of Natural History, relates that, '' On 

 December 12th, either 1823 or 1824, he heard the Nightingale 

 singing clearly and distinctly, although not very loudly, at Godal- 

 ming, Surrey ;" and he remarks that, in the same neighbourhood, 



• This depends very much on the state of the moon^ 

 VOL. IV. NO. XV. C 



