278 BRITISH BIRDS. 
the autumn moult is at hand—a time when no bird is heard to sing. 
The song of the Nightingale has possibly been overpraised. Its beauties 
have been the poet’s theme for ages; and men have immortalized it who 
have probably never listened to its strains. Fiction has described the 
bird as leaning against a thorn, and has thus explained the cause of its 
singularly melancholy notes. The Nightingale’s song nevertheless is 
not equalled by that of any other bird; and the volume, quality, and 
variety of its notes are certainly unrivalled. It is impossible in words 
to convey its delightful strains to the reader; the bird’s haunts must 
be visited, and its sweetness listened to there. The Nightingale does 
not always sing in the hours of night, as is very popularly believed to be 
the case; and it may be heard warbling at all hours of the day. Neither 
is the Nightingale the on/y bird that sings under a starlight sky; the 
Sedge-Warbler, the Robin, the Thrush, the Cuckoo, the Grasshopper 
Warbler, and others repeatedly do so. I have heard persons describe in 
rapturous language the music they have heard at night, which they attri- 
buted to the present bird, when the Sedge-Warbler was undoubtedly the 
musician that had charmed them so much. 
The food of the Nightingale is for the most part obtained upon the 
ground :—worms, that are searched for in the marshy portions ofits haunts 
and under the decaying leaves ; ants and their larve, and also other insects, 
many of which it obtams amongst the herbage on the ground or in the 
decaying timbers found in its marshy haunts. It is also said to be 
extremely partial to fruit, like most of the small summer birds of 
passage, and to eat both elder-berries and currants. The young 
birds were observed by Montagu to be almost entirely fed on small green 
caterpillars. 
It seems that the Nightingale resorts yearly to its old haunts, and, like 
the Robin, is somewhat pugnacious during the pairing-season, zealously 
guarding its own little domain from intrusion. The breeding-season com- 
mences early in May; and the nest is usually on or near the ground. In 
the woods the site of the nest is usually amongst the tal) rank grass or 
beneath the low underwood, sometimes in a recess amongst old gnarled 
roots, and occasionally in ivy several feet from the ground. At other 
times it is built in the close dense hedgerow-bottoms, and on the banks of — 
a lane amidst the luxuriant summer plants there. Sometimes it is placed in 
a heap of dead leaves at the foot of a tree. The nest is a large structure 
loosely put together outside, but neatly finished. It is composed externally 
of dry grass, sometimes fine flags and rushes, and strips of withered bark, 
together with dead leaves of the oak, the hawthorn, and the birch, usually 
the former. The nest-cavity, which is deep and round, is lined with fine 
grasses, dry rootlets, sometimes with horsehair, and more rarely with 
vegetable dow De 
