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Mr. W. E. Teschemakek,



eastern districts, watered by the Elbe and the Oder ; bnt in the

other territory which they hold in common the two species seem

to be a good deal mixed up, and we may guess that warfare is

not unknown for, if we may judge by their behaviour in captivity,

they do not like one another and, as the Nightingale is the first

to arrive at its nesting haunts, it probably often has to do battle

for the site it has selected. The Sprosser has the merest trace of

a bastard-primary, as pointed out by Howard Saunders and many

years previously by Bree, which alone would serve to distinguish

it from its relative; it is also a longer bird (7 in. as against 6.50

in.) and a bulkier bird, and lastly, its upper breast is clouded

and, in some specimens, distinctly streaked with a darker shade.

Nevertheless, it has been stated—on one occasion the remark

was made to me personally by a most experienced aviculturist—

that the Sprosser is no larger than the Nightingale. I explain

this in two ways : in the first place a singing Sprosser is worth in

Germany 30/-, its relative only 20/-, and it is, therefore, quite

possible that the latter species has been frequently imported

under the name of the former; secondly, in the case of both

species there are the usual variations in point of size.* I can

testify to this because I once conveyed in the same small cage a

genuine, though remarkably small, Sprosser, caught in Russia,

and an abnormally large Nightingale, caught in the neighbour¬

hood of London. Not only was the Nightingale as large as the

Sprosser, but he soon proved to the latter that he was the more

doughty warrior. Nevertheless, it would be no exaggeration to

say that an expert could generally tell the one from the other in

the dark-—by the simple process of taking them in his hand.


I11 the wild tract of country where the mighty Volga makes

a sweeping bend towards its smaller rival, the Don, the Sprosser

meets another near relative—the Eastern Nightingale, D. golzii.

The Sprosser is undoubtedly a good species, but the claims of

D. golzii to this distinction are not by any means so obvious, f

D. philo?nela and D. luscinia, as we have seen, overlap as breeding

species, but D. golzii and D. luscinia do not. True, we are told



* At the B.O.C., October, 1896 ,1 exhibited a large Nightingale from Cambridge, whose

length was 7 inches, and wing measurement 4 5 inches.— Ed.


t I)r. Hartert (Vog Pal. Fauna, I. p. 735, 1910) classes it as a subspecies of our

Nightingale, and the Sprosser as a distinct species. — E».



