j6 Nightingales 



the bouquets of wild flowers which Nature has lavish- 

 ingly scattered at his feet. 



He is only clothed in a rich but sober dress of 

 brown, which warms into a brighter chestnut hue 

 in the tail and upper coverts, and pales into lighter 

 shades upon the breast. 



There, amongst the blue-bells, he hops on slender 

 legs and feet, his bright brown eye searching for some 

 insect. In size no larger than a robin, or not much 

 so ; but in shape there is more finesse^ and his move- 

 ments are more lithe. 



As he flies off to some sheltering undergrowth, 

 his rufous tail shows almost as conspicuously as a red- 

 start's, and on settling he moves it up and down, 

 uttering his call note " We-pr-r-r, we-pr-r-r." 



I think it is a mistake to consider the nightingale's 

 song in any sense as a melancholy one ; it rather seems 

 to be an overflowing rush of gladness and joy. 



It sounds as if he was so delighted to have reached 

 the sweet English woods, and gardens, and meadows 

 once more in safety, where he is, during the first 

 few days of his arrival, awaiting the return of his 

 little brown wife, when he will upraise his voice 

 from early morn till dewy eve, and all through the 

 moon-lit nights will challenge the bird world to 

 equal him. 



In May, craftily concealed in some hazel stump 

 or tangle of undergrowth, the nest of dead leaves 

 and fibres of roots will be built, wherein, mothering 

 four or five olive - brown eggs, his mate will sit, 

 her brown plumage exactly assimilating with her 



