NIGHTINGALE. 303 



danger threaten, occasionally changing to a sharp snapping 

 noise, made with the beak, which is considered to be a note 

 of defiance. Colonel Montagu took a nest of young Night- 

 ingales early in June, and placing them in a cage, observed 

 that the parent birds fed them principally with small green 

 caterpillars. The adult birds feed on insects of various 

 sorts, flies, moths, spiders, and earwigs. 



When we consider that this bird extends its visits during 

 the summer as far north as Russia and Sweden, its very 

 limited range in this country is unaccountable. It is found 

 in Sussex, Hampshire, Dorsetshire, and the eastern part 

 only of Devonshire, along the line of our south coast. It 

 has been heard about Teignmouth and Exmouth, but no 

 farther west in that direction. In north Devon it has been 

 heard near Barnstaple, but not in Cornwall or Wales. A 

 gentleman of Gower, which is the peninsula beyond Swan- 

 sea, procured from Norfolk and Surrey, a few years back, 

 some scores of young Nightingales, hoping that an acquain- 

 tance with his beautiful woods and their mild climate 

 would induce a second visit ; but the law of Nature was 

 too strong for him, and not a single bird returned. Dyer, 

 in his Grongar Hill, makes the Nightingale a companion of 

 his muse in the vale of Towey or Carmarthen ; but this 

 is a poetical license, as the bird is not heard there. The 

 Nightingale has not hitherto been heard in any part of 

 Ireland. 



In a note by Mr. Blyth, in an edition of White's Sel- 

 borne, it is observed, " The Nightingale, I think, appears 

 to migrate almost due north and south, deviating but a 

 very little indeed either to the right or left. There are 

 none in Brittany, nor in the Channel islands, Jersey, 

 Guernsey, &c. ; and the most westward of them probably 

 cross the Channel at Cape La Hogue, arriving on the coast 



