DISTRIBUTION OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 21 



visit occasionally districts still further north, it is quite 

 probable that these exceptional visits were also made in the 

 past, and that these visits are dependent to some extent at 

 any rate on the variations that take place from year to year 

 in its numbers, and its relative abundance in some seasons in 

 its normal area of distribution. Within the area of its regular 

 summer-range it usually occurs in Hmited numbers only. It 

 is only in the neighbourhood of Doncaster, and on the southern 

 fringe of the county bordering Nottinghamshire, that it can 

 be described as fairty abundant. A line passing north of 

 Rotherham and Barnsley, and east of Wakefield, Leeds, and 

 Harrogate to near Boroughbridge, and then east through 

 Skelton (five miles north of York), and, sweeping round the 

 southern spur of the Wolds up to Beverley, and finally reaching 

 the North Sea about Hornsea, circumscribes the portion of the 

 county within which the Nightingale is an annual summer 

 visitor, while an outer line from Sheffield by Huddersfield, 

 Bradford, Otley, Ripon, and Thirsk toNormanby-in-Cleveland, 

 thence south-east to Scarborough, includes all the locahties for 

 which there is satisfactory evidence of the bird ever having 

 bred or occurred. 



The whole Yorkshire distribution lies strictly within the 

 lowlands, and nowhere exceeds 250 feet above sea level, except 

 in the single instance of its breeding within the Spa Gardens 

 at Harrogate. Indeed, the foothills of the Pennine Range, of the 

 Cleveland Hills, and even those of the chalk Wolds form fring- 

 ing borders of the bird's range. 



On the fringe of its range it is not at all constant to one partic- 

 ular haunt, and is more abundant generally in some seasons 

 than in others, which may to some extent account for its 

 intermittent appearance in the more northern and outlying 

 districts within its range. 



From the counties further north there are a few records, 

 but, in our opinion, further evidence is required before they 

 can be fully accepted. It is quite possible that an occasional 

 male may reach Lancashire, as there is no natural obstacle to 

 prevent its doing so. Howard Saunders only deemed one 

 worthy of attention up to 1892, and Mr. H. 0. Forbes states 

 that no authentic nest has ever been taken, though he seems 

 to think that there is evidence of its occurrence in the Irwell 

 valley. The B.O.C. Migration Report for 1907 contains the 

 record " Lancashire, May 19." On investigation this appears 

 to be founded on a report of two at Clitheroe on that date. 

 As recorded by Saunders, Mr. G. Bolam saw and heard a male 

 in the north of Northumberland in 1893. 



