NIGHTINGALE. 277 



birds feed on insects of various sorts, flies, niotlis, spiders, 

 and earwigs. 



When we consider tliat this bird extends its visits during 

 the summer as far north as Russia and Sweden, its very 

 limited range in this country is unaccountable. It is found 

 in Sussex, Hampshire, Dorsetshire, and the eastern part only 

 of Devonshire, along the line of our south coast. It has 

 been heard about Tinmouth and Exmouth, but no farther 

 west in that direction. In North Devon it has been heard 

 near Barnstaple, but not in Cornwall or Wales. A gen- 

 tleman of Gower, which is the peninsula beyond Swansea, 

 procured from Norfolk and Surrey, a few years back, some 

 scores of young Nightingales, hoping that an acquaintance 

 with his beautiful woods and their mild climate would in- 

 duce a second visit ; but the law of Nature was too strong 

 for him, and not a single bird returned. Dyer, in his 

 Grongar Hill, makes the Nightingale a companion of his 

 muse in the vale of Towey or Carmarthen ; but this is a 

 poetical license, as the bird is not heard there. The Night- 

 ingale has not hitherto been heard in any part of Ireland. 



In a note by Mr. Blyth, in an edition of White's Sel- 

 borne, it is observed, " The Nightingale, I think, appears to 

 migrate almost due north and south, deviating but a very 

 little indeed cither to the right or left. There are none in 

 Brittany, nor in the Channel islands, Jersey, Guernsey, &c. ; 

 and the most westward of them probably cross the Channel 

 at Cape La Hogue, arriving on the coast of Dorsetshire, and 

 thence apparently proceeding northward, rather than dis- 

 persing towards the west ; so that they are only knoAvn as 

 accidental stragglers beyond at most the third degree of 

 western longitude, — a line which cuts off the counties of 

 Devonshire and Cornwall, together with Wales and Ireland." 

 Montagu says it is plentiful in Somersetshire ; but it is only 

 occasionally heard now in the northern part of that county. 



