NIGHTINGALE. 633 



grow very fat, and are taken in great numbers for our tables. 

 They build their nest on the ground, beneath some clod, forming 

 it of hay, dry fibres, &c. and lay four or five eggs. 



The place these birds are taken in the greatest quantity, is the 

 neighbourhood of Dunstable; the season begins about the 14th of 

 September, and ends the 25th of February : and during that space 

 about 4000 dozen are caught, which supply the market of the 

 metropolis. Those caught in the day are taken in clap-nets of 

 fifteen yards length, and two and a-half in breadth; and are 

 enticed within their reach by means of bits of looking-glass, fixed 

 in a piece of wood, and placed in the middle of the nets, which 

 are put in a quick whirling motion, by a string the larker com- 

 mands : he also makes use of a decoy lark. These nets are used 

 only till the 14th of November, for the larks will not dare, or 

 frolick in the air, except in fine sunny weather; and of course 

 cannot be inveigled into the snare. When the weather grows 

 gloomy, the larker changes his engine, and makes use of a tram. 

 mel.net, twenty-seven or twenty.eight feet long, and five broad ; 

 which is put on two poles, eighteen feet long, and carried by men 

 under each arm, who pass over the fields and quarter the ground 

 as a setting dog ; when they hear or feel a lark hit the net, they 

 drop it down, and so the birds are taken. 



[Pennant* 



SECTION XIV. 



Nightingale* 

 Motacilla luscinia. Linn. 



The nightingale takes its name from night, and the Saxon word 

 galan, to sing ; expressive of the time of its melody. In size it 

 is equal to the redstart ; but longer bodied, and more elegantly 

 made. The colours are very plain. The head and back are of a 

 pale tawny, dashed with olive ; the tail is of a deep tawny red ; 

 the throat, breast, and upper part of the belly, of a light glossy 

 ash-colour : the lower belly almost white ; the exterior web of the 

 quill-feathers are of a dull reddish brown ; the interior of brownish 

 ash-colour: the irides are hazel, and the eyes remarkably large 

 and piercing ; the legs and feet a deep ash-colour. 



This bird, the most famed of the feathered tribe, for the variety, 



