218 ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 



those spots where the passage from the great sea to the lakes and 

 rivers is shortest and least occupied by land ;" a fact of which seve- 

 ral instances are mentioned in corroboration. We might as well 

 try to explain the instinct which induces an ant, or a small rodent 

 quadruped, to bite off the corcule (or growing part) of a seed, 

 before storing it away for a future occasion. 



^7^6?, therefore, proffered explanations of them to be received with 

 much caution. — It may be considered that I have been very diffuse, 

 perhaps tediously so, upon the subject of migration ; and that I 

 have devoted more time and space to its consideration than was 

 needed in a dissertation upon the Nightingale ; but I have been 

 induced to descant on it thus largely on account of the plausible 

 and easy manner in which I have noticed the various phenomena 

 connected with it to be explained away, in some recent and popular 

 works on Natural History ; explanations which, at first ^ight, 

 would appear to be satisfactory in the extreme, but which a very 

 little practical observation shews, at once, to be shallow and un- 

 sound. 



I proceed now to offer a few remarks upon the treatment of 

 Nightingales in confinement, and will then conclude by pointing 

 out what I consider to be its true affinities, and its proper and na- 

 tural situation in the general system of ornithology. 



Mode of capturing the Nightingale. — Those who might wish to 

 possess a caged Nightingale should capture one upon their first ar- 

 rival in the spring, for then there can be no doubt of its being a 

 cock bird, and there is also a much better chance of its living. 

 Nothing is more easy than to catch them ; but if they once happen 

 to get away, they are not to be entrapped a second time. Persons, 

 therefore, whose grounds are much molested by bird-catchers, and 

 who wish to preserve their Nightingales, cannot possibly do better 

 than to have a number of them caught every spring, and then suf- 

 ^red to escape, which will effectually baffle the ingenuity of these 

 marauders. The usual mode of taking them is with what is called 

 a Nightingale trap, which may be procured at any bird-shop ; this 

 is baited with a meal-worm, or with a moth or butterfly (which 

 will answer the purpose equally well), and placed where some 

 ground has been turned up> close to where one is heard singing. 

 The bird (a fine songster being, of course, selected) will survey the 

 whole operation, and then, perfectly unsuspicious, will fall at once 

 into the snare. 



And qfgeUing it to live in a cage.— He should then be immedi- 

 ately placed in a cage, of which one side only should be wire, and be 



