Nightingales 89 



Let me finish this chapter with its subject. 



It is only a week to Christmas Day, and my caged 

 nightingale, although the days are cold and gloomy, is 

 singing every day, and all day long, quite brightly and 

 fearlessly, his voice gaining in strength and compass. 

 He hops into his bath, the water of which is quite 

 cold, where he flutters and splashes quite happily. 

 He is two years old, and was caught as a " brancher " 

 — a term already explained. 



His plumage is smooth and perfect, and his cage is 

 of Indian manufacture — long, and rather low, open on 

 all sides and on the top, made of split bamboo. 



A nightingale should never be kept in a wire cage, 

 nor any other insectivorous bird either, for their 

 plumage is much more easily damaged, and their tail 

 or wing feathers broken, than bullfinches' or canaries', 

 &c. 



In Germany, Austria, and Italy nightingales are 

 perhaps more frequently kept as cage birds than they 

 are in England. It is not an altogether uncommon 

 thing to find one in a cage, hung up in the verandah 

 of some hotel or inn. 



