304 SYLVIADA. 
of Dorsetshire, and thence apparently proceeding north- 
ward, rather than dispersing towards the west; so that 
they are only known as accidental stragglers beyond at 
most the third degree of western longitude,—a line which 
cuts off the counties of Devonshire and Cornwall, together 
with Wales and Ireland.” Montagu says it is plentiful in 
Somersetshire ; but it is only occasionally heard now in the 
northern part of that county. It is not included by Mr. 
Rylands in his Catalogue of the Birds of Lancashire; yet 
it has been heard on the north-west side of England as high 
up as Carlisle, but no farther. 7 
On the eastern side, this bird is well known to frequent 
Kssex, Suffolk, Norfolk, some of the more wooded parts of 
Lincolnshire, and several parts of Yorkshire; but not 
higher than five miles north of the city of York, as I learn 
from my friend and correspondent Mr. Thomas Allis. The 
Nightingale has not, I believe, been heard in Scotland, or 
in the Scottish islands; which, considering that it does 
visit Denmark, is also extraordinary. It is said to have 
been heard in Calder Wood in Mid Lothian, in the early 
part of the summer of 1826, but I have heard of no recent 
instance. An attempt to establish the Nightingale in Scot- 
land is thus recorded in a note to an edition of White's 
Selborne, published in Edinburgh. ‘It has been generally 
believed that the migratory songsters, both old and young, 
return to their native haunts in the breeding season. From 
this circumstance it is believed, that if any of these could 
be bred beyond the ordinary limits of their incubation, they 
would return in the following season to their birth-place. 
Impressed with this belief, Sir John Sinclair, Bart., long 
known for his patriotism, commissioned the late Mr. Dick- 
son of Covent Garden to purchase for him as many Night- 
ingales’ eggs as he could procure, at a shilling each. This 
