106 SURREY SCENES 



rush which seems to promise success, and then breaking 

 down helplessly. Now and then the complete song is 

 sung so low as to be almost inaudible, and then 

 triumphantly repeated with the utmost powers which 

 the bird can exert. Prowling bird-catchers, with their 

 traps and mealworms, are wont to find their way to 

 Nightingale Valley at this season ; and the owner of 

 the farm finds it necessary to give orders for the pro- 

 tection of the nightingales equally with the pheasants 

 nesting in the copses. By the end of May the birds 

 are sitting ; and the cocks sing to them throughout the 

 night. Hard a^ it is to find a nightingale's nest, the 

 number in the valley is such that quick-eyed searchers 

 have seen as many as six in a day. The eggs and nest 

 of the nightingale are both so beautiful, and so unlike 

 those of any other English bird, that it is impossible to 

 mistake them when once seen. The site is nearly 

 always chosen among the brown and dead oak or 

 Spanish-chestnut leaves which lie on the ground among 

 the brambles or wild-rose roots, or have drifted into 

 some hollow of a bank. Sometimes, though rarely, 

 the position is open to every passer-by, with nothing 

 to conceal it but the resemblance of the nest and sitting 

 bird, with her russet back, to the surrounding colour. 

 The outer circle of the nest is built of dead oak-leaves, 

 so arranged that the rim of the cup is broken by their 

 projections, a mode of concealment practised, so far as 

 the writer knows, by the nightingale alone of English 

 birds, though a common device in the nests of tropical 

 species. The lining is made with the skeleton-leaves 



