240 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



twenty-five to thirty feet. The singer, motionless 

 on his perch, had looked too long on it, and the effect 

 was such that even after two hurting blows on the 

 glass his little brain had not recovered from its twist. 

 Then came its third and fatal blow. 



To return to the subject of the nightingale's curious 

 distribution in England. The facts appear to show 

 that practically the species is stationary with us; 

 that it remains strictly within the old limits and 

 in about the same numbers. Bird-catchers, birds'- 

 nesting boys, and cats extirpate them round the 

 towns; but, taking the whole country, we do not 

 observe any great changes such as we note in some 

 other migrants — the swallow and martin, for example, 

 and among warblers, to name only one, the lesser 

 whitethroat. The conclusion would seem to be that 

 each season's increase is just sufficient to make good 

 the annual losses from all natural causes and from 

 man's persecution; that every bird returns to the 

 exact spot where it was hatched, and that no new 

 colonies are formed or the range extended. 



The practical question arises: Would it not make 

 a difference if the annual destruction through human 

 agency could be done away with ? I believe it would. 

 Each cock nightingale, we find, takes possession of 

 his own little domain on arrival, and, like his relation, 

 the robin, will not allow another to share it with 

 him; so that if two or more males of a brood, or 

 family, survive to return to the same spot, one 

 presently makes himself master, and the other or 

 others, driven away, settle where they can, as near 



