NIGHTINGALE, J^. 



{After Bewick.) 



82 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX. 



The Robin and the Redbreast, 



The Martin and the Swallow, 

 If ye touch one of their eggs, 



Bad luck will surely follow." 



Nightingale : Dmdias luscinia. 



A common summer visitor, especially abundant, I think, in the 



Epping Forest and Saffron 

 Walden districts. It is ge- 

 nerally first heard about 

 April 15th, though in 1878, 

 it is said (but almost cer- 

 tainly erroneously) to have 

 been heard at Bridge Hall, 

 Stisted, on February loth 

 (Chelmsford Chrofi.., Feb. 

 15). In 1879, Mr. Har- 

 wood heard it at West 

 Bergholt on April 7thj the 

 earliest date he had ever heard it (29. Apr. 12), while Dr. Bree 

 records one (34. 454) heard singing near Colchester as late as 

 August 9th, 1866. The males arrive several days before the females. 

 Mr. Grubb writes (39), " We have a nest almost every year in our garden 

 fat Sudbury], and generally see the young birds after they leave the nest. They 

 are foolishly tame, sometimes coming into the wash-house, and suffering them- 

 selves to be caught." Mr. Buxton says (47. 89) it is " well distributed over our 

 district. » * • In the spring of 1858, an old Leytonstone bird-catcher caught 

 tthirty-four about the avenues." 



Morant says (^Hist. of Essex, i. p. 59) that Havering was 



" an ancient retiring-place of some of our Saxon kings, particularly of that 

 simple saint, Edward the Confessor, who took great delight in it as being woody 

 and solitary, fit for his private devotions. The legend says it abounded with 

 warbling nightingales ; that they disturbed him at his prayers ; and he earnestly 

 ■desired of God their absence. Since which time, as the credulous neighbouring 

 swains believe, never nightingale was heard to sing in the park, but [as] many 

 without the pales as in other places." 



Lesser Whitethroat : Sylvia curruca. 



A fairly common summer visitor, arriving about the middle of 

 April and leaving again about the beginning of September, It is 

 most often seen at the time of the spring migration, but breeds with 

 us in fair numbers, though it is at all times less abundant than the 

 Common Whitethroat. 



Hy. Doubleday, writingi to Heysham in 1831, says (10) that at Epping it is 

 " equally common with the larger one, and much more destructive to fruit in 

 gardens. Its song is very different from any other bird's." W. D. King des- 

 cribes it (20) as common around Sudbury. 



