188 
But to proceed with our subject. Passing on from the eastern 
and south-eastern counties, nightingales are found in many of the 
midland counties, but the numbers become less and less as we 
approach the west and the north. They occur sparingly in 
Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Salop, Staffordshire, Derbyshire 
and Yorkshire, but not further north than the neighbourhood of 
Doncaster, this being the limit northwards according to Selby.* 
The western limit of the nightingale is onthe borders of Somerset 
and Devon, or “the Valley of the Exe,” as stated by Newton. 
Jt is local and rare in the north of Somerset ; in the neighbour- 
hood of Bath, according to my own experience of forty years, it is 
decidedly rare, and of very uncertain occurrence. I used formerly, 
when ‘resident in Bathwick, to hear it occasionally most years 
about Bathwick Cemetery and in hedges on Bathwick Hill; but 
since my removal to Belmont my experiences as to this bird have 
been very scanty indeed. I never heard it in the Park except 
once in the den among the firs ; oftener among the shrubs and 
little plantations in connection with the houses on the other side 
of Park Lane ; and once above the High Common, bordering on 
Sion Hill. 
The nightmgale has never been seen in Ireland, nor I believe 
in N. Wales. It is said to have been heard in Westmoreland and 
Cumberland, and even in Scotland, but these statements want 
confirmation. It is remarked by Professor Newton that “ nearly 
all birds have a definite range which they rarely overstep.” The 
nightingale is no exception, and its distribution is limited. Selby 
thinks there must be some “undiscovered circumstance in the 
economy of this and other species that must be the cause of their 
partial distribution.” He says “it cannot be climate in the case 
of the nightingale as it is found in countries further north than 
* IT may state that my chief authorities, as regards the Nightingale 
Districts, have been Selby and Newton in their respective works on 
British Birds, 
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