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; is not wonderful that fables shonld 

 B arisen concerning the nightingale, for 

 •e are et 11 mysteries connected with his 

 earance and departure which the most 

 •ching investigations of modern science 

 B not yet explained. He comes among 

 very suddenly about the lith or 15th 

 April — punctual, almost to the day ; his 

 nage, so fresh, so unruffled, in every way 

 perfect, that a long flight over hundreds of 

 ;ues of land and sea appears highly im- 

 aable. It has been noticed, too, that when 

 tured immediately after his first appearance, 

 has a slight pleasant odor of earth, freshly 

 , or after a Sinnmer shower. One might 

 ice imag ec that, Uke some of our most beau- 

 1 moths, he has just emers:ed from a deeply- 

 ied chrysalis ; added to which, his extraor- 

 ii-y fearlessness of man for the first few days 

 r his advent, v/hich renders Ins capture so 

 7, might lead the fanciful to picture him to 

 aiaelves as a newly-formed creature, as yet 

 ware that man was a natural enemy. 

 3 bold is ho on his first arrival that, if a por- 

 , of the earth be freshly raked over, or turned 

 1 a spade by one of those birdcatchers, who 

 [1 season make a trade of capturing nightin- 

 ;s, these buds will immocUatoly approach the 

 !e to seek for insects, ere the hunter is 

 •cely out of sight; and if, close to the new 

 icd earth, a " clasp net " have been baited 

 1 the irresistible attraction of a meal-worm, 

 capture of the unsuspecting victim is cer- 

 I. Last season I was much annoj'ed by see- 

 one of these bird-catchers leavmg the woods 

 ad Pinner with seventy male nightingales so 

 tured, iust at the time that every copse in 

 neighborhood was beginning to resound 

 1 their enchanting music. 

 1 order to account for the smeU of fi-esh earth 

 ut the plumage, and the perfectly imruffied 

 ;e of the flight featliere, it has been conjec- 

 3d that this interesting bn-d hybcrnates by 

 ying itself in the ground, but there are many 

 uswerable arguments against this theory, 

 mstance, it is known that m the southeast- 

 islands of the Mediterraneau Sea, in Asia 

 I or, and the north of Africa, tae nightingale 

 ound throughout the winter, gO that ho does 

 hybernate at all, in the generally accepted 

 ming of that term. 



nother nightingale mystery is the capri- 

 13 character of his distribution during his 

 imer appearance in northern and western 

 •ope. It might be imagined that coming 

 n warmer climates, he would seek the mild- 

 portion of our island, and that Devonshire 

 . Cornwall would be his most favorite locali- 

 . But such IS not the case. In the eastern 

 tion of England he locates himself as far 

 th as Durham; while in many of the midland 

 ntiea his presence is miknown. To account 

 this seeming discrepancy it has been con- 

 ured that, commg over from the continent 

 he narrowest part of the Channel, he directs 

 course according to the situation of districts 

 undiug in wood and water, where alone the 

 al food he requires is to be found m sufficient 

 ntity; so that a bare range of down-hke hhls, 

 , countrv in which small water-courses are 

 I, may at once stop his progress in such a 

 ction. That he travels to us irom southeast 

 le more probable conjecture, as m the south 

 ranee he appears ten days earUer than with 

 and in southern Italy e'ven in the middle of 

 ch. This seems to prove that the tide of 

 jration follows the first expansion of the 

 ng leaves, and the simultaneous appearance 

 any kinds of insects which forms his food. 

 jtoHa and Phny both notice tiiat his first 



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IS uue uuiy uu -a, ueri/diu exieiii, lof lie conimues 

 in song during the whole of May and the greater 

 part of June ; but it is only at first that we hear 

 the proud and passionate burst of the love-song, 

 that has inspired the poets. It is in the days 

 preceding the pairing time, and those of tue 

 season of "courtship," that he puts forth his 

 greatest brilhancy and his loudest vocal powers 

 — the melomes of his "married life" bemg of a 

 calmer character, though still far above any 

 other music of the woods. 



On their first arrival, contests take place for 

 favorite localities, and the strongest and most 

 com-ageous prevail. As th« same individual 

 birds and their offspring retm-n to the same 

 places each successive season, these combats 

 often take place between the male parent and 

 the strongest young male bird of the first brood 

 — in fact, shocking as it may seem, between 

 father and son, and the young prodigal often 

 succeeds in beating off his parent, who has to 

 put up with the second-best position, though 

 perhaps still triumphing in song over his stal- 



I wart son, from his new dominion, some thirty or 

 forty yards from the old one. 



' The plumage of both sexes is very simUar, 

 a rich ferrugineous light-brown on the back, 

 getting rather brighter at the tad, while the 

 general tone of the under parts is a hght silvery 

 gray. The nest is a shght but veiy picturesque 

 structure composed of small twigs m the outer 

 part, and with substances of a somewhat softer 

 texture in the interior, such as dry bents of 

 grass, stray horse hairs, or other suitable ma- 

 terials. The eggs are about the size of those 

 of the hedge-sparrow, but rather longer, being 

 more oval in form. Their color is a rich green- 

 ish olive, rather darker and greener in tone 

 than ordinary brown paper, and they have no 

 spots or markings of any kind. The plumage of yy 

 the young bhd is brown, mottled all over withi/ 

 lightish ochreous spots, more or less regularlyj 

 distributed. In general appearance young night-" 

 ingales so closely resemble young robins, while^' 

 still in their nest feathers, that they are often' 

 mistaken for each other. c 



To conclude with a bathos, we are told by, 

 the Italian naturalist (quoting Petrarch) that' 

 a certain landowner in the north of Italy \ 

 got up night after night, in the nightingale 

 season, for the express purpose of destroying 

 the nocturnal annoyances which disturbed his 

 rest; and that not succeeding in extirpating 

 the enemies of sleep in this manner, he pro- 

 ceeded to the extreme measure of cuttmg 

 down the woods to a considerable distance 

 round his house, which proved a more effec- 

 tual defence against the intolerable nuisance. 

 Still worse than this is the following : The 

 nightingale after the close of the breeding sea- 

 son, having been well supplied with an abim- 

 dance of maect food during the Summer, is in 

 very fine condition during the month of Septem- 

 ber — in fact, very plump and fat : and his flesh 

 having been tasted by connoisseurs at that sea- 

 BOUs and pronounced fully equal to that of the 

 brated ortolan, thousands are captured in the 

 south of France (the country of the troubadours) 

 as table deUcacies. As, however, many of the 

 troubadours themselves, especially the one 

 whose adventures have been set to music by Sig- 

 ner Yebdi, did not meet with much better treat- | 

 ment, we need not be surprised at the fate of a 

 plump and deUcious nightingale.— (?nce a Week. 



