240 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



other delicate migrants who come to us by the same 

 route, extend their range so much further north and 

 west? We can only say that the nightingale's range 

 is more restricted, but not by climatic conditions, and 

 that he is more local; in other words, that we don't 

 know. Some have imagined that he is a delicate feeder 

 and goes only where he can find the food that pleases 

 him; others, that he inhabits where cowslips grow 

 kindly; still others, that he seeks a spot where there 

 is an echo. These are but a few of many fancies and 

 fables about the nightingale. 



Not only is it a singular distribution, but in a way 

 unfortunate, since every one would like to hear the 

 nightingale — the summer voice which has, over and above 

 the pleasing associations of the swallow and cuckoo and 

 turtle-dove, an intrinsic beauty surpassing that of all 

 other bird voices. As it is, a large majority of the 

 population of these islands never hear it. In districts 

 where it is thinly distributed, as in Somerset and East 

 Devon, there will be perhaps only one nightingale in an 

 entire parish, and the villages will be proud of it and 

 perhaps boast that they are better off than their neigh- 

 bours for miles around. 



I was staying late in April at a village near the 

 Severn when one Sunday morning the working man I 

 was lodging with informed me that he had heard of 

 the arrival of their nightingale (there was but one), and 

 together we set out to find it. He led me through a 

 wood and over a hill, then down to a small thicket by 

 a running stream, about two miles from home. This 



