THE NIGHTINGALE 19 
it is fancifully said, in contending for the prize in a musical contest. 
This period is anxiously watched for by bird-catchers, who have 
learnt by experience that birds entrapped before they have paired 
will bear confinement in a cage, but that those captured after the 
arrival of their mates pine to death. The Nightingale being a 
fearless bird and of an inquisitive nature is easily snared; hence, 
in the neighbourhood of cities, the earliest and therefore strongest 
birds fall ready victims to the fowler’s art. 
It must not be supposed that this bird sings by night only. Every 
day and all day long, from his first arrival until the young are hatched 
(when it becomes his duty to provide for his family), perched in a 
hedge or on the branch of a tree, rarely at any considerable height 
from the ground, he pours forth hisroundelay, now, however, obscured 
by the song of other birds. But not even by day is he shy, for he 
will allow any quietly disposed person to approach near enough 
to him to watch the movement of his bill and heaving chest. At 
the approach of night he becomes silent, generally discontinuing 
his song about an hour before the Thrush, and resuming it between 
ten and eleven. It is a disputed point whether the Nightingale’s 
song should be considered joyous or melancholy. This must 
always remain a question of taste. My own opinion is, that the 
piteous wailing note which is its most characteristic nature, casts a 
shade of sadness as it were over the whole song, even those portions 
which gush with the most exuberant gladness. I think too, though 
my assertion may seem a barbarous one, that if the Nightingale’s 
song comprised the wailing notes alone, it would be universally 
shunned as the most painfully melancholy sound in nature. From 
this, however, it is redeemed by the rapid transition, just when the 
anguish of the bird has arrived at such a pitch as to be no longer 
supportable, to a passage overflowing with joy and gladness. In the 
first or second week of June he ceases his song altogether. His 
cataract of sweet sounds is exhausted, and his only remaining note 
is a harsh croak exactly resembling that of a frog, or the subdued 
note of a fraven, wate-wate or cur-cur. On one occasion only I 
have heard him in full song so late as the fourth week in June: 
but this probably was a bird whose first nest had been destroyed, 
and whose song consequently had been retarded until the hatching 
of a second brood. From this time until the end of August, when 
he migrates eastward, he may often be observed picking up grubs, 
worms, and ants’ eggs on the garden lawn, or under a hedge in 
fields, hopping from place to place with an occasional shake of the 
wings and raising of the tail, and conspicuous whenever he takes one 
of his short flights by his chestnut brown tail-coverts. 
The Nightingale’s nest is constructed of dead leaves, principally 
of the oak, loosely put together and placed on the ground under 
a bush. Internally it is lined with grass, roots, and a few hairs, 
It contains four or five eggs of a uniform olive-brown, 
