NIGHTINGALE. 83 



abundant. It has also frequented the Regent's Park, Hyde 

 Park, and Kensington Gardens, near London. 



In Scotland a pair are said by Mr. Robert D. Duncan to 

 have bred in Calder Wood, in West Lothian, in the year 1826. 



In Ireland it has hitherto been altogether unknown. 



Woods, groves, plantations, and copses are its favourite 

 resort, but it is also found in gardens, even in the neigh- 

 bourhood of London, and also among thick hedges in shady 

 and sheltered situations. 



Insects of various sorts, spiders, and earwigs furnish them 

 with food. The young are fed principally with caterpillars. 



The Nightingale favours us with its company about the 

 middle or end of April, sometimes it is said, not until May, 

 the males arriving about a week or ten days before the 

 females. It has been known to arrive on the Suffolk coast 

 as early as the 7th. of that month. It departs again in 

 August or September. It would appear that its migration 

 is made in an almost due south and north direction, few 

 being found in Devonshire, and none in Cornwall, Wales, or 

 Ireland, nor any, it is said, in Brittany, or in the Channel 

 Islands. Many have been introduced into the western parts, 

 and others into Scotland by Sir John Sinclair, but they have 

 never returned the following year the birth-place possesses 

 an overpowering attraction for some, but the Nightingale takes 

 a still higher ground, and will pine in any place but that in 

 which it ought to have been born. They seem to travel 

 by night, and to arrive singly, one by one. The older 

 birds too are thought to arrive before the younger ones. 



It its habits it is not shy, and, as is too well known, may 

 be kept in confinement: unfortunately they are easily captured. 

 Bechstein has known one which thus lived for twenty-five 

 years. Those taken on their first arrival are said to do 

 better than those taken afterwards slavery is somewhat the 

 same in birds as in the human species. The right-minded 

 man and the right-minded ornithologist will reprobate both. 

 These birds return to their native haunt, and each one appears 

 to exercise propietorship over its own more peculiar domain. 

 In one instance, related by Mr. J. D. Salmon, of Thetford, in 

 the 'Naturalist,' old series, volume ii, page 52, they have been 

 known to breed in confinement, namely, at Norwich, in the 

 year 1833. The female laid five eggs, which were all hatched; 

 and though the male died, the female did not relax her 

 cares, but successfully reared three young. 



