56 Thk Nightingale. 



or earthwonns from my fingers ; both died of a pulmouarj' complaint in the 

 spring of 1 889, I having turned them into an uuheated aviar}' : it thus became 

 clear that after eighteen months of comparative warmth, the Robin is unfit to 

 cope with the severity of an English winter. 



Since then I have had several of these charming little songsters, but of late 

 years the onl}' one I have had was a cock rescued from a cat, which had broken 

 its wing ; it spent the summer of 1906 in one of my aviaries, and sang 

 incessantly ; but in the following winter it died. I always feel that a bird which 

 will of its own free-will enter your house and remaiti for weeks (if you permit 

 it) a willing captive, should not be " cribbed, cabined or confined." One autumn, 

 after allowing a Robin to take possession of a greenhouse for a week, I was 

 finally obliged to drive him out ; on account, not only of the disfigurement of 

 ni}- plants, but of his propensity to dig for worms in the flower-pots. 



Family— TURDID.^. Subfamily— TURDIlW^. 



The Nightingale. 



Daulias liisciiiia, LiNN. 



HOWARD SAUNDERS gives the following as the geographical distribution 

 of this species : — " On the Continent, Northern Germany appears to be 

 the highest authenticated latitude for our Nightingale ; south of which, 

 except wheie systematically molested by bird-catchers, it is generally distributed 

 throughout Central Europe. In such southern countries as Portugal, Spain, 

 Italy, Greece and Turke}', it is verj- abundant in suitable localities ; breeding also 

 in North Africa, Palestine and Asia Minor. Its north eastern limit in Europe 

 appears to be the valle}- of the Vistula ; and in Russia it is confined to the 

 southern provinces." 



The Nightingale visits Great Britain early in April, but does not reach the 



