Nightingales 81 



seldom or ever as robust as " branchers," that is to say, 

 as young birds of the year, caught after they have 

 flown, and before they migrate to their winter quarters. 

 I managed, however, to rear my two little fellows on 

 fresh raw beef, chopped extremely small, mixed with 

 fresh yolk of eggs — hard-boiled — and preserved ants' 

 eggs (or rather cocoons), which had been first of all 

 soaked. Some grated sponge cake would have been a 

 beneficial ingredient to this receipt. Such a mixture 

 is a good one for a full-grown nightingale in a cage, 

 with the addition of four or five mealworms a day, and 

 an occasional spider, ear-wig, &c, when in season. 



One of my young birds collapsed in his autumn 

 moult ; the other lived through the winter, but never 

 sang. It may have been a hen. At any rate, I shall 

 conclude it was. So tame was she, that when the 

 spring came I allowed her to fly out of her cage into 

 the garden, where she would follow me about when I 

 was tending my borders, appearing unexpectedly from 

 beneath a group of delphinium, whose azure heads of 

 flower were erected above pink, and white, and crimson 

 Shirley poppies, to the height of eight and nine feet. 

 In the little parlour — whose latticed window on one 

 side opened into the verandah — when I was sitting at 

 breakfast, I often heard a slight frou-frou of small 

 wings, and there on the table amongst white cups and 

 saucers, and bunches of sweet peas in vases of green 

 glass, was my nightingale ; head on one side, rufous 

 tail moved up and down, and brown eyes with anxious 

 expression. " Please, I want a mealworm," she said, 

 quite plainly, by movement of tail and expression of eye. 



F 



