Nightingales 8 1 



seldom or ever as robust as " branchers," that is to say, 

 as young birds of the year, caught after they have 

 flown, and before they migrate to their winter quarters. 

 I managed, however, to rear my two little fellows on 

 fresh raw beef, chopped extremely small, mixed with 

 fresh yolk of eggs hard-boiled and preserved ants' 

 eggs (or rather cocoons), which had been first of all 

 soaked. Some grated sponge cake would have been a 

 beneficial ingredient to this receipt. Such a mixture 

 is a good one for a full-grown nightingale in a cage, 

 with the addition of four or five mealworms a day, and 

 an occasional spider, ear-wig, &c., when in season. 



One of my young birds collapsed in his autumn 

 moult ; the other lived through the winter, but never 

 sang. It may have been a hen. At any rate, I shall 

 conclude it was. So tame was she, that when the 

 spring came I allowed her to fly out of her cage into 

 the garden, where she would follow me about when I 

 was tending my borders, appearing unexpectedly from 

 beneath a group of delphinium, whose azure heads of 

 flower were erected above pink, and white, and crimson 

 Shirley poppies, to the height of eight and nine feet. 

 In the little parlour whose latticed window on one 

 side opened into the verandah when I was sitting at 

 breakfast, I often heard a slight frou-frou of small 

 wings, and there on the table amongst white cups and 

 saucers, and bunches of sweet peas in vases of green 

 glass, was my nightingale ; head on one side, rufous 

 tail moved up and down, and brown eyes with anxious 

 expression. " Please, I want a mealworm," she said, 



quite plainly, by movement of tail and expression of eye. 



F 



