70 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



and continue to make a croaking sound, very like 

 the queer voice of the corncrake on a smaller scale, 

 until you retire. But if you sit quietly in any 

 nightingale haunt at any hour of a sunny day, it will 

 not be long before one of them deliberately takes up 

 a position in full view and sings snatches of song at 

 you in exactly the manner of a robin. Like a robin, 

 too, it will presently drop from its exalted position 

 and reappear a little nearer, perhaps on the ground. 

 Then you can see that it stands in the same attitude 

 as a robin, and, like that bird's, its upturned tail is 

 seldom still. Indeed, from the way in which the tail 

 is elevated and rhythmically waved up and down, 

 with slight heaves of the body, you see the kinship 

 of nightingale and robin with larger birds of their 

 order, such as blackbirds and fieldfares. 



A MATTER OF VOICE AND WAISTCOAT. 



On the ground, too, the nightingale hops quickly 

 for a few steps and then pecks vehemently at the 

 ground, exactly like a robin or a thrush, and every 

 now and then springs up to catch a fly in the true 

 robin manner. Also, if you continue to sit still, it 

 will continue to draw nearer, often singing a snatch 

 of song from the ground or a low bush ; and every 

 time that it reappears in view it will be a little 

 closer than when you last saw it. Sometimes, if 

 there happens to be a bush within a yard or two 

 of your position, you will suddenly discover that 

 it has managed to slip into it from the other side ; 

 and at these close quarters it still follows the pre- 

 cedent of the robin, except that whereas the latter 



