THE IMMORTAL NIGHTINGALE 233 



nine months ago ; he vanished about the end of Sep- 

 tember ; yet we may confidently look and listen for 

 him in about six weeks from to-day ! When he left 

 us, so far as we know, he travelled, by day or night, 

 but in any case unseen by even the sharpest human 

 eyes, south to the Channel and France ; then on 

 through the whole length of that dangerous country 

 where men are killers and eaters of little birds ; 

 then across Spain to another sea ; then across 

 Algeria and Tripoli to the Sahara and Egypt, and, 

 whether by the Nile or along the shores of the 

 Red Sea, on to more southern countries still. He 

 travels his four thousand miles or more, not by a 

 direct route, but now west and now south, with 

 many changes of direction until he finds his winter 

 home. We cannot say just where our bird is ; 

 for it is probable that in that distant region where 

 his six months' absence is spent the area occupied 

 by the nightingales of British race may be larger 

 than this island. The nightingale that was singing 

 in this thicket eleven months ago may now be in 

 Abyssinia, or in British East Africa, or in the Congo 

 State. 



And even now at that distance from his true home 

 this very clump where the sap is beginning to move 

 in the grey naked oaks and brambles and thorns some- 

 thing stirs in him too : not memory nor passion per- 

 haps, yet there may be something of both in it an 

 inherited memory and the unrest and passion of mi- 

 gration, the imperishable and overmastering ache and 



