VOICES OF THE NIGHT 
somer, though, as it is seen only in the gloam- 
ing, its quiet beauty is but little appreciated. 
The unobtrusive dress of the nightingale, on 
the other hand, is familiar in districts in 
which the bird abounds, and is commonly 
quoted, by contrast with its unrivalled voice, 
as the converse of the gaudy colouring of 
raucous macaws and parrakeets. As has been 
said, both these birds are summer migrants, 
the nightingale arriving on our shores about 
the middle of April, the nightjar perhaps a 
fortnight later. Thenceforth, however, their 
programmes are wholly divergent, for, where- 
as the nightjars proceed to scatter over the 
length and breadth of Britain, penetrating 
even to Ireland in the west and as far north 
as the Hebrides, the nightingale stops far 
short of these extremes and leaves whole 
counties of England, as well as probably the 
whole of Scotland, and certainly the whole of 
Ireland, out of its calculations. It is however 
well known that its range is slowly but surely 
extending towards the west. 
This curiously restricted distribution of 
the nightingale, indeed, within the limits of 
its summer home is among the most remark- 
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