NIGHTINGALE. 305 
danger threaten, occasionally changing to a sharp snapping 
noise, made with the beak, which is considered to be a note 
of defiance. Colonel Montagu took a nest of young Night- 
ingales early in June, and placing them in a cage, observed 
that the parent birds fed them principally with small green 
caterpillars. The adult birds feed on insects of various 
sorts, flies, moths, spiders, and earwigs. 
When we consider that this bird extends its visits during 
the summer as far north as Russia and Sweden, its very 
limited range in this country is unaccountable. It is found 
m Sussex, Hampshire, Dorsetshire, and the eastern part 
only of Devonshire, along the line of our south coast. It 
has been heard about Teignmouth and Exmouth, but no 
farther west in that direction. In north Devon it has been 
heard near Barnstaple, but not in Cornwall or Wales. <A 
gentleman of Gower, which is the peninsula beyond Swan- 
sea, procured from Norfolk and Surrey, a few years back, 
some scores of young Nightingales, hoping that an acquain- 
tance with his beautiful woods and their mild climate 
would induce a second visit; but the law of Nature was 
too strong for him, and not a single bird returned. Dyer, 
in his Grongar Hill, makes the Nightingale a companion of 
his muse in the vale of Towey or Carmarthen ; but this 
is a poetical license, as the bird is not heard there. The 
Nightingale has not hitherto been heard im any part of 
Ireland. 
In a note by Mr. Blyth, in an edition of White’s Sel- 
borne, it is observed, ‘‘ The Nightingale, I think, appears 
to migrate almost due north and south, deviating but a 
very little indeed either to the right or left. There are 
none in Brittany, nor in the Channel islands, Jersey, 
Guernsey, &c.; and the most westward of them probably 
cross the Channel at Cape La Hogue, arriving on the coast 
