304 SYLVIADJl. 



of Dorsetshire, and thence apparently proceeding north- 

 ward, rather than dispersing towards the west ; so that 

 they are only known as accidental stragglers beyond at 

 most the third degree of western longitude, a line which 

 cuts off the counties of Devonshire and Cornwall, together 

 with Wales and Ireland." Montagu says it is plentiful in 

 Somersetshire ; but it is only occasionally heard now in the 

 northern part of that county. It is not included by Mr. 

 Rylands in his Catalogue of the Birds of Lancashire ; yet 

 it has been heard on the north-west side of England as high 

 up as Carlisle, but no farther. 



On the eastern side, this bird is well known to frequent 

 Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, some of the more wooded parts of 

 Lincolnshire, and several parts of Yorkshire ; but not 

 higher than five miles north of the city of York, as I learn 

 from my friend and correspondent Mr. Thomas Allis. The 

 Nightingale has not, I believe, been heard in Scotland, or 

 in the Scottish islands ; which, considering that it does 

 visit Denmark, is also extraordinary. It is said to have 

 been heard in Calder Wood in Mid Lothian, in the early 

 part of the summer of 1826, but I have heard of no recent 

 instance. An attempt to establish the Nightingale in Scot- 

 land is thus recorded in a note to an edition of White's 

 Selborne, published in Edinburgh. " It has been generally 

 believed that the migratory songsters, both old and young, 

 return to their native haunts in the breeding season. From 

 this circumstance it is believed, that if any of these could 

 be bred beyond the ordinary limits of their incubation, they 

 would return in the following season to their birth-place. 

 Impressed with this belief, Sir John Sinclair, Bart., long 

 known for his patriotism, commissioned the late Mr. Dick- 

 son of Covent Garden to purchase for him as many Night- 

 ingales'* eggs as he could procure, at a shilling each. This 



