NIGHTINGALE. 315 



intervals throughout the day, but frequently serenading his 

 partner during the night — whence the name of the bird ; 

 galan, in Anglo-Saxon, signifying to sing. The nest of the 

 Nightingale is deep and placed on or near the ground, 

 advantage being often taken of a slight depression in the 

 soil ; some dead oak, hawthorn or hornbeam leaves form 

 the outworks, with a few dry bents and j^ortions of rushes : 

 towards the bottom it is lined with fine fibrous roots, but 

 the whole is very loosely constructed.* The eggs are from 

 four to six in number, generally of a uniform deep olive- 

 brown, often inclining to red, produced apparently by the 

 suff'usiou of reddish-brown colouring over a greenish-blue 

 surface which is sometimes partially or entirely exposed : 

 frequently the brown is seen lying in fine streaks on the 

 surface, and is occasionally collected at one end in the form 

 of a cap. The eggs measure from "9 to '75 by from -69 to '55 

 in., and are laid in May, the young being hatched in June. 

 From this time the song is seldom heard ; a single loud croak 

 is occasionally uttered as a warning, should danger threaten, 

 with a sharp snapping of the bill indicative of extreme anxiety. 

 Montagu, having placed a nest of young Nightingales in a cage, 

 observed, that the parents fed them principally with small 

 green caterpillars. The adults live chiefly on various insects, 

 but are said to eat certain berries, as those of the elder. 



When we consider that nearly all birds (to say nothing 

 of other animals or of plants) have a definite range which 

 they rarely overstej), the distribution of the Nightingale in 

 this country, limited as it is, has in it nothing that can be 

 justly termed extraordinary, though the causes of the bird 

 keeping so strictly within certain bounds are, it must be 

 confessed, unaccountable. In England the Nightingale's 

 western limit seems to be formed by the valley of the Exe, 



• Poets have fancied that the Nightingale's nest contains a thorn against which 

 tlie bird leans and in pain pours forth its song. Mr. A. C. Smith has ingeniously 

 urged (Zool. p. 8029) that the fiction, which hardly requires serious contradiction, 

 may have had a foundation in fact, and the subject is also treated in Mr. Hart- 

 ing's ' Ornithology of Shakespeare.' Mr. Hewitson mentions that he has seen 

 two nests of the Iledge-Spavrow so imijerfectly finished that thorns were sticking 

 through the ir\sidc. 



