5 8 SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE. 



Fletcher speaks of 



" The bird forlorn, 

 That singe th with her breast against a thorn." 



And Pomfret, writing towards the close of the 

 seventeenth century, says 



" The first music of the grove we owe 

 To mourning Philomel's harmonious woe ; 

 And while her grief in charming notes express'd, 

 A thorny bramble pricks her tender breast." 



The origin of such an odd notion it is not easy 

 to ascertain ; but probably Sir Thomas Browne was 

 not far from the truth when he pointed to the fact 

 that the Nightingale frequents thorny copses, and 

 builds her nest amongst brambles on the ground. 

 He inquires "whether it be any more than that she 

 placeth some prickles on the outside of her nest, or 

 roosteth in thorny, prickly places, where serpents 

 may least approach her P" 1 



In an article upon this subject published in The 

 Zoologist for 1862 (p. 8029), the Rev. A. C. Smith, 

 Vicar of Calne, Wilts, has narrated the discovery on 

 two occasions of a strong thorn projecting upwards 

 in the centre of a Nightingale's nest. It cannot 



1 Sir Thomas Browne's Works, Wilkin's ed., vol ii. p. 537. 



