on the Nesting of the Spiosser.



321



of migrants making for the Straits of Gibraltar, N.W. Africa and

the Gold Coast, the other crossing the Mediterranean at points

considerably further east and heading for the Nile Valley. It is

the Sahara which really divides up these two contingents, a

region which all migrants give as wide a berth to now, when it is

a sea of sand, as they probably did in those remote days when it

was a vast expanse of salt water.


The Eastern Nightingale, according to Hartert, winters

in Southern Arabia, in parts of India {eg. Oudli) and in E, Africa.


Skxuai. Distinctions.


Except during the short period of the pairing season it is

always a difficult matter to determine the sex of a Nightingale.

The first lien Sprosser which I succeeded in obtaining was a

hand-reared bird and did not show any marked indications of

sex: I did not attempt to breed from it. In the following year a

German dealer, who has had many hundreds of Sprossers pass

through his hands, sent me a bird which he undoubtedly con¬

sidered to be a female because he valued it at the not extravagant

figure of 5/-. This ‘lien’ is in my possession to-day, and sang so

freely in the spring that I was able to take some Phonograph

records from it! When I mentioned this fact to the dealer he

replied that next time he would make 110 mistake, and he was as

good as his word, for last May he sent me a Sprosser which I had

no difficulty in recognising as an undoubted female. It was

somewhat paler 011 the back, very much ligliteron the underparts

and had a finer head and beak, and what I can only describe as a

feminine air.


Song.


Of the three Nightingales I have 110 hesitation in saying

that D. luschiia is the finest songster from an artistic point of

view. Its tones are more varied and melodious, its expression

more facile and impassioned and lastly, but by no means leastly,

it has no discords. Many of the Nightingale’s tours are re¬

produced by the Sprosser with success, but there are others which

it does not attempt. The beautiful whistling tour (“ tee-tee-tee ”)

which D. luscinia generally selects as a prelude to its song and

which, when it is introduced as a finale , is sung with a rallentando

effect, is really exquisite, and might almost be described as



