THE IMMORTAL NIGHTINGALE 235 



on the first occasion of licarinjj him in spring, the strain 

 affects us as somctliing wholly new in our experience, 

 a fresh revelation of nature's infinite richness and beauty. 



I know that in a few weeks' time he will be back at 

 the same spot ; in this case we do not say "barring 

 accidents"; they are not impossible, but are too rare to 

 be taken into consideration. Yet it is a strange thing! 

 He ceased singing about June 20, nearly nine months 

 ago; he vanished about the end of September; yet we 

 may confidently look and listen for him in about six 

 weeks from to-day! When he left us, so far as we 

 know, he travelled, by day or night, but in any case 

 unseen by even the sharpest human eyes, south to the 

 Channel and France; then on through the whole length 

 of that dangerous country where men are killers and 

 eaters of little birds; then across Spain to another sea; 

 then across Algeria and Tripoli to the Sahara and 

 Egypt, and, whether by the Nile or along the shores 

 of the Red Sea, on to more southern countries still. 

 He travels his four thousand miles or more, not by a 

 direct route, but now west and now south, with many 

 changes of direction until he finds his winter home. 

 We cannot say just where our bird is; for it is probable 

 that in that distant region where his six months' ab- 

 sence is spent the area occupied by the nightingales of 

 British race may be larger than this island. The night- 

 ingale that was singing in this thicket eleven months 

 ago may now be in Abyssinia, or in British East Africa, 

 or in the Congo State. 



And even now at that distance from his true home — 



