THE NIGHTINGALE 443 



Nov. 1833 a (p. 467). On the 16th of September a number of robins 

 alighted on a ship off the coast of Yorkshire. After a while, all con- 

 tinued their journey except two. These at once divided the ship into 

 two estates, one occupying the bow end, the other the stern end of 

 the vessel. Any attempt by one or the other to cross the boundary 

 line was regarded as a declaration of war, and hostilities at once 

 ensued. How the affair ended is not recorded. 



THE NIGHTINGALE 

 [F. B. KIRKMAN] 



As for most of us there is but one lark, so there is but one 

 nightingale, the " wakeful bird," the " solemn bird " of Milton, " that 

 darkling tunes his note in shadiest covert hid," Wordsworth's 

 " creature of a fiery heart," Keats's " immortal Bird." For most 

 of us, indeed, there is likely to remain but one nightingale, unless 

 fortune permits us to go as far east as Denmark or Sweden in order 

 to seek and hear that other nightingale, his rival, for rival he has, 

 and one of no mean order. This species (Luscinia litscinia) the 

 thrush-nightingale is its English name, given it because of the 

 somewhat faintly spotted appearance of its breast resembles our 

 own, but is larger, darker on the back, wings, and forebreast, less 

 rufous and browner on the tail, and has a white throat and stouter 

 bill. Generally speaking, its range is more northerly hence the 

 name of northern-nightingale sometimes applied to it and more 

 easterly than that of our form ; it inhabits East Europe omitting the 

 north of Scandinavia and Russia South-west Siberia and Turkestan, 

 and is a migrant to East Africa, leaving its congener in possession 

 of West and Central Europe, and nearly all the shores and islands 

 of the Mediterranean, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Isles of 

 Greece and beyond, except the eastern part of the African coast-line. 2 



1 See Nelson, op. cit. 2 E. Hartert, Vogel der Palaarktischen Fauna, i. p. 737. 



