AUDUBON ON THE NIGHTINGALE. 25 



about six inches and three quarters ; the head is ovate, of 

 a good proportionate size, the body slender, the tail long ; 

 altogether a slim, genteel bird, of graceful motions and 

 retired habits, having all the marks of high breeding, as 

 we should say : and then, what a songster ! 



In this country the Brake Nightingale, as it is frequently 

 called, generally arrives somewhere about the middle of 

 April ; it is first observed in the south, from whence it 

 disperses itself over the whole of the southern and eastern 

 counties, being found, however, only in particular localities; 

 it does not appear to have been observed farther north 

 than Carlisle ; Macgillivray says, i although supposed to 

 have been heard in Scotland, it has never been obtained 

 there,' and there is great reason to doubt whether it has 

 really been heard there. In England we are not left long 

 in doubt as to the bird's arrival, for very soon from the 

 roadside plantation or copse, yet bare of leaves, comes that 

 gush of rich melody, which is so unmistakable, and about 

 which Audubon writes so enthusiastically : 



"With all the anxious enthusiasm of youth I resolved to judge 

 for myself of the powers of song in birds, and to begin by studying 

 first those of the Nightingale, the very bird which had attracted my 

 regard in its plain brown garb and most modest mien. The part 

 of France in which I then was proved, as I thought, remarkably 

 well adapted for this purpose. Kambling occasionally between 

 Bheims and the capital, during the genial season at which this dis- 

 tinguished songster appears there in considerable numbers, and 

 keeping away from the main roads, I would seek all such byeways 

 as were deeply cut beneath the surface of the country around, and 

 especially such as were well supplied with tall and well-set hedge- 

 rows, in the neighbourhood of orchards, and almost close to the 

 cottages of the humble tillers of the soil. In solitudes like these I 

 was sure to meet with Philomel. Now, perched scarcely ten or 

 fifteen feet from the ground, on some branch of a thicket, I have 

 watched it on its first appearance, in the beginning of April, as 

 for several days the males which I observed exhibited an appear- 

 ance of lassitude and melancholy almost painful to me. Silent, still, 

 and in a position almost erect, the Nightingale would stand, as if 

 in a state of stupefaction, for more than an hour at a time, or 

 until, pricked by hunger, it would fly to the ground, hop over it in a 

 direct line, and, meeting with an insect, would seize it precisely in 

 the manner of a Thrush. By this, reader, I would have you un- 



