THE NIGHTINGALE. 345 



ground ; and thus, though safe from birds of prey, it 

 often falls a sacrifice to small quadrupeds, such as 

 weasels and polecats. The mother is said often to fall 

 a prey to the same ; and the male, when he finds that 

 she does not answer to his call-note, mounts the lofty 

 tree again, and pours forth his song over all the wood- 

 birds. We have not had the means of verifying that by 

 actual observation, and we doubt much whether any- 

 body has, but we have more than once heard the night- 

 ingale sing -out anew, after a week or ten days of com- 

 parative silence ; but as it is impossible to identify the 

 birds, we cannot speak with precision. The nest is 

 formed of dry leaves, lined with withered grass, and 

 thus in structure resembles that of the other warblers ; but 

 the eggs so far differ that they are only of one colour, 

 an intermediate shade, made up of brown, yellow, and 

 green, and not very unlike the colour of the nest. Five 

 is about the average number. The male brings food 

 for the female, and occasionally relieves her in the nest 

 till the young come out of the shell, and then both 

 parents feed them with the greatest assiduity. Smooth 

 caterpillars of the leaf-rolling insects, and also of some 

 of the saw flies, are understood to be the principal 

 nutriment of the young ; and the slender bills of the 

 old ones are well adapted for taking the former out of 

 their folds, or the latter out of their holes and crevices. 

 When food is found very near the nest, the birds carry 

 the caterpillars one by one in the point of their bills ; 

 but when they make a more distant excursion they fill 

 the whole mouth. This assiduous feeding lasts for 

 about two weeks, at the end of which the young birds, 

 though they cannot fly far, are said to hop from twig 



