THE PERCHING BIRDS. 



141 



woods and coppices in and around Boiirnemoiitli, immedi- 

 ately between these two districts, I heard or saw never 



a one. From its habit of singing loudly on 

 opu ar moonlight nights, many people seem to imagine 



that the bird is silent throughout the day, 

 whereas in reality it sings the spring through from soon 

 after daybreak until about an hour before noon ; then, after 

 a silence during the hottest hours, again through the after- 



noon into the darkness. Another fancy is that this is the 

 only bird that sings after darkness has set in, whereas the 

 song-thrush, and in some parts the sedge- warbler, also 

 sing, and the wood-pigeons coo, during the w^arm summer 

 nights. The song of the nightingale, the curious sustained 

 gurgling and shivering of which is unlike that of most 

 birds, the nearest being the blackcap's, is admirably 

 described in Hudson's 'British Birds.' 



The food of the nightingale consists almost entirely of 

 insects and worms, largely of caterpillars and elderberries, 

 rarely of soft orchard fruit. 



