THE THRUSHES. 7^ 



supplied. I should recommend no one to keep a 

 Nightingale who cannot rely on a sufficient supply of small 

 grasshoppers, white-ants, etc., to keep the bird almost 

 entirely on such food. The European Nightingale has been 

 bred in captivity in England, and I have little doubt that 

 the Persian bird would breed in India, as I have received 

 accounts of hen birds laying eggs when kept alone in 

 cages. 



As these birds nest in woods on the ground, using dead 



leaves, the best way to get them to breed would be to put 



a tame pair in a large cage about six feet square, well 



supplied with bushy branches stuck hi the ground, 



which should be partly covered with turf, watered from 



outside to keep it fresh, and partly with a thick bedding 



of dead leaves. A very liberal supply of insects should 



be kept up. Indeed, it would be a good plan to make 



the sides of the cage of wire gauze of the coarse kind (in 



fine iiauze the birds would catch their claws) and let in a 



lot of assorted insects every day for the birds to catch 



naturally. They would not need cleaning in a cage of 



the size, and the bath, food, etc., could easily be put in 



by a small door. It w^ould be worth taking a great deal 



of trouble to domesticate this superb songster, which, after 



so many centuries, still maintains, with all nations who 



know it, its reputation as the most melodious of wild living 



things. For acclimatization abroad I should expect the 



Persian Nightingale to be a more suitable subject than 



the European species, as it does not appeal" to undertake 



long migrations as these do. I say these, because there 



are two species of Nightingales in Europe, the Western 



