112 TREATISE ON 



on being restored to his former mistress, he quickly 

 recovered, ate, drank, returned to his perch, and 

 was well in twenty-four hours. Buffon mentions 

 one that lived to the age of seventeen years; and, 

 though hoary, was yet happy and gay, warbling 

 as in early youth, and caressing, to the last, the 

 hand that fed it." 



It is said that nightingales are neither to be 

 found in the western counties of England, nor in 

 Wales, nor farther north than Yorkshu*e, and cer- 

 tainly not in Scotland. We have been told, how- 

 ever, by a gentleman, that these birds have been 

 heard in Dumfriessliire, and in Ayrshire; and a 

 circumstance, mentioned to us by another gentle- 

 man, leads us to believe that nightingales do oc- 

 casionally visit Scotland: they may possibly be 

 stray birds, or birds, having lost their mates, 

 in quest of others. But the circumstance men- 

 tioned by our friend was this : — that, in June, last 

 summer, 1822, in his garden, near Leith Walk, 

 Edinburgh, he heard a bird sing every evening, 

 for about ten days, until a late hour, sometimes till 

 near midnight. The song was quite new to him ; 

 but it was much sweeter, and continued longer in 

 one strain, or warble, than the song of any other 

 bird with which he was acquainted. He describes 



