NOVEMBER. 



377 



earth and air, in summer when they are busy 

 with the pleasant cares of their nests or young 

 broods, and subjecting them to a close prison, 

 is detestable doubly detestable in the case of 

 migratory birds. They have not merely the 

 common love of liberty, but the instinct of 

 migration to struggle with; and it may be 

 safely asserted, that out of every ten nightin- 

 gales so caught, nine pine away and die. Yet 

 the capture of nightingales is very extensively 

 practised. The bird-catchers declare them to 

 be the most easily taken of all birds; and 

 scarcely can one of these glorious songsters 

 alight in a copse or a thicket, but these kid- 

 nappers are upon it. Some of these men as- 

 sure me that the female birds arrive about ten 

 days later than the males, whose songs give 

 notice of their retreats, on hearing which the 

 females alight; therefore, when nightingales 

 first appear, the bird-catchers are almost sure 

 of taking only male birds, which, being the 

 singers, are the only ones they want. The 

 nightingale, a bird which God has created to 

 fly from land to land to crown the pleasantness 

 of spring with the most delicious music, or a 

 lark, which he has made to soar, in the rapture 



