VOL. VI.] SOME NOTES ON NIGHTINGALES. 171 



call to mind but very few Nightingale pictures out of 

 the very large number of all species that I have seen. It 

 cannot be that this species offers any special difficulty 

 of itself, for during the past two breeding-seasons I got 

 on intimate terms, so to speak, with two pairs of birds 

 and found that with ordinary precautions they were 

 no more difficult to make exposures on than say any 

 of the members of the genus Sylvia. I say make 

 exposures advisedly, because there is all the difference 

 between making exposures and getting successful pic- 

 tures, and herein hes the real difficulty. The nest-site is 

 frequently so overgrown that a longish exposure is nearly 

 always necessary even with the fastest plates and the 

 widest admissible lens-aperture, and there are many 

 nests where a successful picture of the bird in any 

 other position than the brooding one is well nigh 

 impossible. From this cause the whole of the plates 

 which 1 exposed in 1912 were failures ; and I must crave 

 the indulgence of readers for the imperfections of the 

 accompanying pictures, though I trust they may be 

 not without interest. 



The nests of both pairs were in the same wood, 

 consisting of oak-trees standing in mixed coppice of birch, 

 ash, hornbeam, etc., four and five years old, the birches 

 which predominated being from eight to ten feet in 

 height. The situation of the nests was normal in every- 

 way. In 1911 a shelter was erected three days before 

 the eggs were due to hatch and I spent two days at the 

 nest when the young were three and four days old. 

 In 1912 the shelter was not put up until the young were 

 six days old and photography was attempted on the 

 following day. 



In neither case was the female in the least shy, she 

 came to the nest for the first time after a comparatively 

 short wait and thenceforward fed the young at short 

 intervals throughout the day. The male, as with many 

 species, appeared to be much less trustful of the shelter 

 and projecting lens than his mate, and I derived the 



