438 AN AGREEABLE SURPRISE. [CHAP. xiv. 



C. I suppose you mean the rare plants which you 

 still have in Norfolk, the Parnassia, or the insect- orchids 

 the Bee-flower, the Spider-flower, and so on. But 

 stop! Hark! What bird was that? so loud, so 

 clear, so sweet, and so close to us ? 



E.-A. They are come ! Keep still and speak low, or 

 it will stop. 



C. I never heard the like before. This is something 

 quite new to me. Exquisite ! Most touching ! The 

 sweetest sounds, expressing what ? sorrow? or is it joy? 

 or is it love ? I should like to see the creature. 



E.-A. You may, but you will then lose your treat for 

 a while. There, look ! on that leafless oak-twig, just 

 above the entangled undenvood, sits your charmer. 



C. What! that dark, graceful, taper, little thing? It 

 must be THE NIGHTINGALE ! It darts away, and is 

 gone ! 



E.-A. Never mind. You will soon hear either that 

 again, or another. I thought I should give you a plea- 

 sant surprise, and am glad not to have been disappointed. 

 It is very curious that you should not have Night- 

 ingales in your plantations as well as we in ours. There 

 is no apparently valid reason to the contrary, but the 

 range of the Nightingale in this country has its stated 

 limits. Mr. Yarrell has denned them with considerable 

 precision, namely, that it is not heard in the extreme 

 west, in Cornwall, Wales, or Ireland; and he also gives 

 Carlisle, and five miles beyond York, as the points of 

 its furthest migrations on the western and eastern parts 

 of England respectively. Mr. Blyth fixes the third 

 degree of western longitude as its European boundary. 



C. Can you in the least account for this invisible 

 barrier between us at home and the Nightingale? 



