58 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



appalling journey " home," to risk the truly awful perils of 

 return to their native land. Had they human intelligence, 

 and did they live by reason, not one of them would think of 

 coming here. 



What human parents would think of wintering in, say, 

 Cairo, if they knew that the railway companies meant to 

 destroy them wholesale as they travelled down to Dover ; 

 that the coast-guard and along-shore rabble were all on the 

 look-out for them to take their lives ; that the Channel steamer 

 owners were in conspiracy to kill them ; that the quays at 

 Calais were swarming with avowed murderers of British 

 travellers ; that every Continental line was run by bandits and 

 brigands sworn to shed their blood, and every hotel and 

 resting-place an ambush of assassins ? What British pater- 

 familias would "winter in Cairo" under such conditions of 

 travel ? Yet these are the conditions under which the nightin- 

 gales come and go. Only they do not know it. If they did, 

 " the instinct of self-preservation " would surely triumph over 

 " love of country," and we should never see any nightingales 

 in England, nor any turtle-doves — one of the most beautiful of 

 our birds. But more of turtle-doves by-and-by. 



