398 ON THE HABITS OF THE BRAKE NIGHTflVGALE. 



(Strix flammea), and occasionally, though seldom, and only on 

 clear moonlight nights, the Grey Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus). 

 The Wild Duck (Anas boschas) and Canada Goose (Anser Cana- 

 densis, Will.j are also — like most other Anatidse, Leach — very 

 active and clamorous in the night season. But to return to the 

 subject of this article. 



The Brake Nightingale, as before stated, is very rarely to be 

 seen either in the day-time or at night, its habits being extremely 

 shy and retired. When forced to leave the tree on which it is 

 singing, it does not fly across to the tree on which it intends to 

 alight, but flutters round through the bushes, and ascends the 

 tree by hopping upwards, thus eluding observation. I have 

 never found the nest of this species, nor, indeed, is it an easy 

 matter to discover it, as its colour assimilates so closely with the 

 surrounding leaves, which had fallen the preceding autumn. It 

 is composed of oak leaves of the former year, lined with dry 

 grass, and is placed on the ground. The eggs from four to six 

 in number, are of an olive brown colour, and nearly elliptical. 

 Hewitson has not yet figured the egg of this bird in his beautiful 

 British Oology,* but Lewin has given a tolerably good representa- 

 tion of it in his Birds of Britain, 



A friend informed me last summer that some years ago only 

 one Nightingale was heard in Kensington Gardens, which are 

 annually visited by six or seven ; and this Nightingale was at 

 length discovered to be a man imitating the song of that bird, 

 and who had mingled with the crowd every night, carolling, as 

 he walked along, the well-known strains of sweet Philomel ! All 

 the other Nightingales had been caught and imprisoned by the 

 neighbouring bird-catchers. I have also lately heard of a man 

 who travels about the country, gaining a livelihood by imitating 

 the song of the Nightingale, Sky Lark {Alauda arvensis), Yellow- 

 billf (Turdusmerula), and other birds ! all of which he imitated 

 so successfully that, had he been stationed in the woods, the 

 notes might have been supposed, even by an Ornithologist, to 

 have proceeded from the birds themselves. The organ of imita- 

 tion was doubtless very fully developed in this person. 



Some Ornithologists have supposed that there are two distinct 

 species — and some two varieties — of the Nightingale, confounded 

 under one name. The one has been called the Common Nightin- 

 gale, and the other the Greater Nightingale. Those who are of this 

 opinion say that the latter, besides being larger than the Com- 

 mon, or more properly the Brake Nightingale, "has a much 

 stronger, louder, and deeper voice; but it sings more slowly and 

 more unconnectedly ; it has not that astonishing variety, those 

 charming protractions, and harmonious conclusions of the com- 

 mon nightingale; it mutilates all the strains; and, on this 

 account, its song has been compared to the missel thrush, to 



* Unless it be in the first or second number, which I have not as yet been able 

 to procure. 



t Vulgarly Blackbird, 



