MAY. 71 



" chit-chitters " at you, the nightingale utters its grat- 

 ing croak. Presently, tiring of this, it slips out of the 

 bush again and reappears in full view a few yards 

 off, alternately singing and catching flies. At such 

 times, when its back is turned and you cannot see 

 whether it has a red breast or no, there is only a 

 slight difference in the tinge of ruddy russet of its 

 plumage to tell you that it is not a robin ; for in 

 manner, attitude, and outline, the two birds are almost 

 identical. 



ANCESTRAL FRIENDSHIP? 



In this habit of the nightingale to draw closer to 

 a human being and to elect to sing in full view near 

 at hand, we see the ancestral habit which has made 

 the robin the friend of man, almost leading one to 

 regard that friendship as of date more ancient than 

 the separation of robin and nightingale into distinct 

 species. In that case it might have been the habit 

 of migration which caused the first separation as, 

 possibly, it separated the whinchat from the stone- 

 chat and that in the nightingale's evident interest in 

 man we see the relics of an ancient habit of familiarity, 

 now broken by the fact that as a migrating species it 

 no longer requires human kindness in winter. In one 

 respect the nightingale would be as fully qualified as 

 the robin for intimacy with man, because it is intensely 

 conservative in returning year after year to the same 

 spots which it and its forefathers have always haunted. 

 Any one familiar with a neighbourhood of nightin- 

 gales might mark out a number of fifty-yard circles, 

 within every one of which, on a fine day at the encj 



