ORDER PASSERES. 15 



in the four-and-twenty hours to take food ; this would be 

 a long: time for a bird to fast that feeds on insects : but the 

 truth is, that the male supplies her with food in the course of 

 the day. As soon as the young have broken the shell, both 

 parents take equal care of them, but they do not disgorge the 

 food for them, like canaries. In this point they do not differ 

 from the other insectivorous birds, for, like them, they have 

 no crop. They fill their beak, as far as the oesophagus, Avith 

 small worms, naked caterpillars, ant''s eggs, and those of other 

 insects, which they distribute equally to the young. When 

 the food is abundant near the nest, they content themselves 

 with carrying it at the end of their beak, as they do when 

 they bring up their young in aviaries. The little ones have 

 the body covered with feathers in less than fifteen days, and 

 quit the nest before they are able to fly. They then are ob- 

 served to follow their parents, jumping from branch to branch. 

 As soon as they can flutter, the male takes care of the rest 

 of their education, while the female is occupied in construct- 

 ing a new nest for the second brood ; she has generally two in 

 the year, seldom three, at least in our part of the world, ex- 

 cept the first has been destroyed, which often occurs, after 

 the placing of the nest. 



After the birth of the first brood the nightingale ceases to 

 sing, and is seldom heard during the second hatching, how- 

 ever late it may take place. But it often utters a piercing 

 cry, especially in the evening, which is heard at a great dis- 

 tance, and a kind of low, hoarse, croaking, which the father 

 and mother repeat incessantly, whenever the nest is approach- 

 ed. These are cries of inquietude and alarm, which far from 

 proving a security, serve only to reveal the place of conceal- 

 ment, and expose the young to danger ; still, at this signal, 

 the young family remains motionless, squats down on the 

 branches, or conceals itself in the bushes, and especially pre- 

 serves a most profound silence. 



Towards the end of August, or even sooner, if their 



