Pcrchins: Birds. 



73 



The Common Nightingale. 



Europe comprises the greater 

 part of Central and Southern 

 Europe, but it is not found in 

 the north. 



Arriving about the middle of 

 April, the males precede the 

 females by at least a week, and 

 even in the early days of May 

 the males ma}' be heard in the 

 copses of the south of England, 

 four or five singing at one time, 

 showing that thus early in the 

 3-ear the birds have not yet 

 separated for their breeding- 

 quarters. When the nesting- 

 place is selected, no bird can be 

 more difficult of observation, for 

 it frequents the most secluded 

 thickets and hedge-rows, and is very seldom seen, though the liquid notes of the 

 male may be heard throughout the daj' and often far into the night. The nest is 

 a ragged aftair, of dead leaves, principally oak-leaves, and lined with grasses or a 

 little horse-hair. The eggs are from 

 four to six in number, of an olive-brown 

 or olive-green colour, with sometimes a 

 little clouding of olive-brown dots round 

 the larger end. 



The Robin is 

 such a familiar bird 

 that any detailed 

 description of its 

 plumage or its 

 habits seems to be unnecessary in a little 

 treatise like the present. It is a common 

 bird throughout the greater part of the 

 British Islands, but a good many Robins 

 leave us in the Autumn, when old and 

 young birds, the latter mostly moulting 

 from the spotted-dress into the adult red- 

 breasted plumage, may be seen and 

 heard among the orchards and planta- 

 tions on our southern coasts, where The Rehhreast. 



THE 



REDBREAST. 



(Erithacus 



rubecnla.) 



