2992. on the winter food of the nightingale. 311 
ly in its place, and interesting to the curious, te 
give the simple stratagem by which the peasant 
procures a steck of ants eggs during the summer, 
dor the winter market,— as he does it by obliging 
the little industrious insect itself, to separate them 
from the quantity of hetrogeneous matter with 
which they are mixed in its hillock or nest. 
The Rufsian fhepherd thapes out a spot about two 
or three yards-square, on some sequestered piece of 
bare beaten ground, commonly a:bye road ; and sur- 
roundsit with a wet ditch, two or three inches broad, 
and an inch or two deep. \Into the centre of this 
little formican fort, he then brings a whole hillock, 
with all its contents, and scatters it about, laying here 
and there, (on spots kept clean for the purpose,) 
little heaps of small fir branches, under which the 
whole diminutive community hasten to conceal their 
eggs, with all the industry so well remarked by 
Solomon, .as the only hiding places which the 
cruel wet ditch permits them to reach with their 
precious deposit. 
By this simple.stratagem, the lazy fhepherd, when 
he has lolled his hour out on the adjoining turf, 
finds the whole of the insect treasure under the fir 
Branches, carefully separated from all extraneous 
» substances, and fit for market, either freth or dried, 
according to the season, where he sells them by 
measure, to the numerous amateurs of the nightin- 
gale. 
I fhall finthh this letter by observing, that Alba~ 
micus’s description of the Englith nightingale, agrees 
qwith the Rufsian variety, except in the tip of red 
