NIGHTINGALE. 217 



The Robin is not only catholic in its choice of a nesting site 

 but is often eccentric. It prefers a hole in a bank, wall, tree, 

 shed, old kettle, shoe or hat, but it will build under a shelter of 

 grass or on a shelf in an outbuilding. A bird which built in a 

 wooden pulpit was neither disturbed by the parson nor the 

 organ and choir. The nest is bulky, built of dead leaves, grass 

 and moss, and lined with hair and a few feathers. Five or six 

 is the usual clutch, and two or three broods are reared. The 

 eggs (Plate 79) are white with specks or mottles of light red ; 

 they vary from a few specks to bold blotches. They are usually 

 laid in March, but winter nesting is not uncommon. 



The sexes are alike ; the plumage of the adult bird needs no 

 description, except that the narrow blue-grey margin between 

 the olive-brown of the upper parts and orange-red of the breast 

 is often overlooked. The legs are brown, the bill and irides 

 black ; the bright black eye is one of its peculiar charms. The 

 young are spotted and streaked (upper fig., Plate 89) with buff 

 on a brown ground, and are mottled on the breast. After their 

 first autumn moult the breast is paler and the red covers a 

 smaller area. Length, 575 ins. Wing, 3 ins. Tarsus, i in. 



Nightingale. Lusdnia megarhyncha Brehm. 



The Nightingale's summer range extends from England east- 

 ward to the Balkans and Asia Minor, and southward to north- 

 west Africa. It reaches England as a spring migrant about the 

 middle of April, and towards the end of August and during 

 September leaves for winter quarters. In England and Wales 

 its range is restricted — south and east of southern Yorkshire, 

 Cheshire, the border counties of Wales, Somerset and Devon. 

 On the outskirts of this range it is local and irregular ; it is 

 doubtful if it has occurred in the north and west of Yorkshire 

 or in Lancashire ; the statements that it has nested in the 

 latter county are unreliable. It has once been noted from 



