278 BRITISH BIRDS. 



the autumn 1 moult is at hand a time when no bird is heard to sing. 

 The song of the Nightingale has possibly been overpraised. Its beauties 

 have been the poet's theme for ages ; and men have immortalized it who 

 have probably never listened to its strains. Fiction has described the 

 bird as leaning against a thorn, and has thus explained the cause of its 

 singularly melancholy notes. The Nightingale's song nevertheless is 

 not equalled by that of any other bird ; and the volume, quality, and 

 variety of its notes are certainly unrivalled. It is impossible in words 

 to convey its delightful strains to the reader; the bird's haunts must 

 be visited, and its sweetness listened to there. The Nightingale does 

 not always sing in the hours of night, as is very popularly believed to be 

 the case ; and it may be heard warbling at all hours of the day. Neither 

 is the Nightingale the only bird that sings under a starlight sky; the 

 Sedge-Warbler, the Robin, the Thrush, the Cuckoo, the Grasshopper 

 Warbler, and others repeatedly do so. I have heard persons describe in 

 rapturous language the music they have heard at night, which they attri- 

 buted to the present bird, when the Sedge- Warbler was undoubtedly the 

 musician that had charmed them so much. 



The food of the Nightingale is for the most part obtained upon the 

 ground : worms, that are searched for in the marshy portions of its haunts 

 and under the decaying leaves ; ants and their larvse, and also other insects, 

 many of which it obtains amongst the herbage on the ground or in the 

 decaying timbers found in its marshy haunts. It is also said to be 

 extremely partial to fruit, like most of the small summer birds of 

 passage, and to eat both elder-berries and currants. The young 

 birds were observed by Montagu to be almost entirely fed on small green 

 caterpillars. 



It seems that the Nightingale resorts yearly to its old haunts, and, like 

 the Robin, is somewhat pugnacious during the pairing-season, zealously 

 guarding its own little domain from intrusion. The breeding-season com- 

 mences early in May ; and the nest is usually on or near the ground. In 

 the woods the site of the nest is usually amongst the tall rank grass or 

 beneath the low underwood, sometimes in a recess amongst old gnarled 

 roots, and occasionally in ivy several feet from the ground. At other 

 times it is built in the close dense hedgerow-bottoms, and on the banks of 

 a lane amidst the luxuriant summer plants there. Sometimes it is placed in 

 a heap of dead leaves at the foot of a tree. The nest is a large structure 

 loosely put together outside, but neatly finished. It is composed externally 

 of dry. grass, sometimes fine flags and rushes, and strips of withered bark, 

 together with dead leaves of the oak, the hawthorn, and the birch, usually 

 the former. The nest-cavity, which is deep and round, is lined with fine 

 grasses, dry rootlets, sometimes with horsehair, and more rarely with 

 vegetable down. 



