The Nightingale. 123 



chamber, Sir William Brereton, to whom the adjacent 

 estate of Alderley had been granted by Henry VIII., 

 and who was shortly afterwards beheaded by the same 

 monarch, on account of asserted misconduct towards 

 his mistress. 



The little wood on the opposite side of the line, 

 a trifle nearer Manchester, is noted as the spot selected 

 for its lodging by the first of the nightingales of '62. In 

 the list of Manchester birds given at the end of " Walks 

 and Wild-flowers," (1858,) though upwards of thirty 

 "summer visitants" are enumerated, the name of the 

 nightingale does not appear, so that 1862 may be con- 

 sidered as the year of its first coining into the neigh- 

 bourhood. The bird that has often been mistaken for 

 the nightingale is the sedge-warbler, Sylvia phragmi'tis, 

 (frequent about the pond-sides, especially in Cheshire, 

 where there is plenty of congenial vegetation,) and 

 which, like the equally frequent grasshopper-warbler, 

 Sylvia locustella, is apt to begin singing the moment it is 

 disturbed, particularly if it be late in the evening. 

 For two or three weeks after the early part of May, the 

 Wilmslow nightingale sang here every evening ; and so 

 great was the curiosity, not to say the enthusiasm, shown 

 with regard to it, that parties came in vehicles from 

 considerable distances, and on fine nights there was 

 often a crowd of people. The same was the case at 

 Strines, where, as mentioned above, another nightingale 

 took up its temporary abode at the same period. Why 



