440 SOME EXPLANATION. [CHAP. xiv. 



gales appear to have so fixed an attachment to their old 

 breeding-places, that they, and I suppose their succes- 

 sors, will annually return to the same haunts, and to no 

 other. My hypothesis is, that the Nightingale family 

 originally settled in my grove have all been caught off, 

 to the last descendant, and no others can yet be induced 

 to occupy the premises that are to be let on the easy 

 terms of an occasional song. An enthusiastic fancier, 

 Mr. James Wait, of the Hotel, Portishead, near Bristol, 

 to whom I communicated the circumstance, suggests 

 the same solution as the probable one. Shall I read 

 you a portion of his letter ? 



C. By all means : it will while the way homewards. 



E.-A. " I can readily account for the reason why the 

 Nightingales did not cross the boundary of the parish 

 in which you reside, although you have them so near. 

 T know, from experience, that the birds will frequently 

 build on the same spot, year after year, even although 

 their nest be continually disturbed. When I was a boy 

 at school in Middlesex, I was particularly fond (as most 

 boys are) of birds- nesting ; and although twenty years 

 have passed, I feel positive that it would be no difficult 

 matter for me to march to the very spot (if time has 

 not removed it) where, year after year, I ahvays found a 

 Nightingale's nest. It was built in the remnant of an 

 old stump of a thorn with a cavity shallowly hollowed 

 out at the bottom. It was always a very conspicuous 

 position where the habitation of this lonely bird was 

 fixed, and too often disturbed by the molestation of cruel 

 schoolboys like myself: still the Nightingales would 

 come again the following year, and commence and re- 

 commence their hopeless task ; and though continually 

 doomed to disappointment, they never seem to be tired 



