BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 



able of the many problems confronting the 

 student of distribution, and successive in- 

 genious but unconvincing attempts to explain 

 its seeming eccentricity, or at any rate ca- 

 price, hi the choice of its nesting range only 

 make the confusion worse. Briefly, in spite of 

 a number of doubtful and even suspicious 

 reports of the bird's occurrence outside of 

 these boundaries, it is generally agreed by 

 the soundest observers that its travels do 

 not extend much north of the city of York, 

 or much west of a line drawn through Exeter 

 and Birmingham. By way of complicating 

 the argument, we know, on good authority, 

 that the nightingale's range is equally 

 peculiar elsewhere ; and that, whereas it like- 

 wise shuns the departments in the extreme 

 west of France, it occurs all over the Penin- 

 sula, a region extending considerably farther 

 into the sunset than either Brittany or Corn- 

 wall, in both of which it is unknown. No 

 satisfactory explanation of the little visitor's 

 objection to Wild Wales or Cornwall has 

 been found, and it may at once be stated 

 that its capricious distribution cannot be 

 accounted for by any known facts of soil, 

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