448 THE THRUSH FAMILY 



side to inspect the ground beneath its perch, then flitting down to 

 make a closer inspection. It hops in much the same way, with the 

 same flicks and jerks, but all is done more deliberately, with greater 

 dignity and gravity. A robin may look saucy, a nightingale never ; at 

 least, I have never seen it look so, and hope I never may. A saucy 

 nightingale is, indeed, unthinkable, an offence to gods and men. 

 Sint ut sunt, ant non sint ! 



Like the redstart, the nightingale arrives on our shores each April 

 to depart again in the autumn. The males precede the hens by several 

 days, and, again like the two redstarts and many other species, they 

 occupy a nesting-area from which intruding males are driven. Then 

 each cock tunes his lay, and waits the glad hour that is to bring his 

 mate. Some have thought he sings in order to signal to her the chosen 

 spot, but if, as appears to be undoubtedly the case, birds return to their 

 old haunts, then the hen has no more need of guidance to it than the 

 cock. If he can find it unaided, so can she. It is far more likely that 

 he sings because he must, because love has him in its grip, and be- 

 cause song, in the absence of the beloved, is the supreme expression 

 of the passion which he unquestionably feels, at least in the physical 

 sense. 



There is no published description of the nightingale's love 

 displays, but Mr. H. Eliot Howard tells me he has frequently seen the 

 cock, when moving about the hen, fan out the shapely tail, and move 

 it up and down. He will also sometimes fly towards his mate on out- 

 spread wings. As might be expected, he seeks to overcome his rivals 

 by force of harmony as well as by strength of beak and claw. 1 It 

 would be interesting to know, as in the case of the redstart, whether 

 these rivals include the bird's own progeny of previous years, for it 

 may fairly be assumed that these very likely return to the place of 

 their birth. 2 



The cock has been seen to share in the work of constructing the 



1 For some further account of the nightingale's conflicts with rivals see Mr. E. Selous's Bird 

 Watching, p. 307. 



2 Another opening for the use of leg-rings. 



