THE NIGHT SIDE OF NATURE 91 



on the night. The song continues through the time 

 of building, laying and incubating which takes us 

 into June and then ceases. When the young are 

 hatched, they are fed for the most part upon small 

 green caterpillars. The food of the parents them- 

 selves consists of such insects as are found in the 

 situations already indicated. Yarrell states that 

 the nest of the nightingale is " almost always on the 

 ground," though several of my naturalist friends 

 agree that this is by no means the case. It is built 

 in dense and secluded situations, in shrubs or 

 bushes, or in hedgerows. The nest is composed of 

 bents, twigs, fibrous roots, grass, and dead oak 

 leaves. Four or five eggs of a uniform olive-brown 

 colour are laid, and, as already stated, are hatched in 

 June. 



One of the most eminent naturalists in the country, 

 whose home is among the haunts of the nightingale, 

 tells me that the birds begin to arrive with him (in 

 Lincolnshire) during the last weeks of April, the 

 males making their appearance ten days in advance 

 of the females. They then continue to sing for 

 about six weeks. He has noticed that in his home 

 woods and plantations they invariably haunt those 

 places where thickets of blackthorn are densest and 

 most impenetrable, and should these be cleared away 

 the birds do not reappear in the following spring. 

 Nightingales, he continues, sing both by day and by 



