^£a NIGHTINGALE. Class IL 



and upper part of the belly of a light glofly afli- 

 color : the lower belly almoft white : the exterior 

 webs of the quil-feathers are of a dull reddifh 

 brown ; the interior of brownifli afli-color : the i- 

 rides are hazel, and the eyes remarkably large and 

 piercing: the legs and feet a deep afh- color.. 



This bird, the mod famed of the feathered 

 tribe, for the variety *, length, and fweetnefs of its 

 notes, vifits E}7gland the beginning of Jpril, and 

 leaves us in Augujt, It is a fpecies that does not 

 fpread itfelf over the ifland. It is not found in 

 North IVales', or in any of the Englijh counties 

 north of it, except l^orkjhire^ where they are met 

 with in great plenty about Boncqfter. They have 

 been alfo heard, but rarely, near Shrew/bury. It 

 is alfo remarkable, that this bird does not migrate 

 fo far weft as Devon/hire and Cornwall', counties 

 where the feafons are io very mild, that myrtles 

 flourifli in the open air during the whole year : nei- 

 ther are they found in Ireland, Sibbald places 

 them in his lift of Scotch birds 5 but they certainly 

 are unknown in that part of Great Britain^ probably 

 from the fcarcity and the recent introdudion of 

 hedcyes there. Yet they vifit Sweden^ a much more 

 fcvere climate. With us they frequent thick 



* For this reafon, Oppian, in his halieiUicSj 1. I. 728. gives 

 the nightingale the epithet ofaioAo^wvn, or 'various 'voiced; and 

 Be/tod, (figuratively) of iroiKO^Qhi^oi, or 'various throated. 

 E^ya, tiou rifJi-s^ai, 1. 20 1> 



hedges. 



