56 Thk Nightingale. 



or earthworms from my fingers ; both died of a pulmonary complaint in tlie 

 spring of 1889, ^ having turned them into an unheated aviarj' : it thus became 

 clear that after eighteen months of comparative warmth, the Robin is unfit to 

 cope with the severity of an English winter. 



Since then I have had several of these charming little songsters, but of late 

 3'ears the onl}'' one I have had was a cock rescued from a cat, which had broken 

 its wing ; it spent the summer of igo6 in one of my aviaries, and sang 

 incessantlv ; but in the following winter it died. I always feel that a bird which 

 will of its own free-will enter your house and remain for weeks (if you permit 

 it) a willing captive, should not be " cribbed, cabined or confined." One autumn, 

 after allowing a Robin to take possession of a greenhouse for a week, I was 

 finally obliged to drive him out ; on account, not only of the disfigurement of 

 my plants, but of his propensity to dig for worms in the flower-pots. 



Famih - TURPII)^. Snhfnmih— TL ^RDIA'. -E. 



The Nightingale. 



Daulias liisciuia, LiNN. 



HOWARD SAUNDERS gives the following as the geographical distribution 

 of this species : — " On the Continent, Northern Germany appears to be 

 the highest authenticated latitude for our Niglitingale ; south of which, 

 except where systematically molested by bird-catchers, it is generally distributed 

 throughout Central Europe. In such southern countries as Portugal, Spain, 

 Italy, Greece and Turke3% it is ver}' abundant in suitable localities ; breeding also 

 in North Africa, Palestine and Asia Minor. Its north-eastern limit in Europe 

 appears to be the valley of the Vistula ; and in Russia it is confined to the 

 southern provinces." 



The Nightingale visits Great Britain early in .\pril, but does not reach the 



