262 Nightingales. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



NOTES ON BIRDS NIGHTINGALES CHAFFINCHES 



MIGRATION PACKING INTERMARRIAGE PEEWITS 



CROWS CUCKOOS GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 



THE nightingale is one of the birds whose habit of 

 returning every year to the same spot can hardly be 

 overlooked by any one. Hawthorn and hazel are 

 supposed to attract them : I doubt it strongty. If 

 there is a hawthorn bush near their favorite nesting- 

 place they will frequent it by choice, but of itself it 

 will not bring nightingales. They seem to fix upon 

 localities in the most capricious manner. In this par- 

 ticular district they are moderately plentiful ; yet in 

 the whole of a large parish (some five miles across) 

 they are only found in one place. The wood which 

 is the roosting-place of all the rooks, large as it is, 

 has but one haunt of the nightingale. Just in one 

 special spot they may be heard, and nowhere else. 

 But having selected a locality, they come back to it 

 as regularly as the swallows. 



In another county in the same latitude there is a 

 small copse of birch which borders a much- frequented 

 road. Here the stream of vehicles and passengers 

 is nearly continuous ; and the birch copse abounds 

 with nightingales in the spring. On one fine morn- 

 ing I counted eight birds singing at once. The young 



