49 



THE NIGHTINGALE. 



Daulias luscinia (L.). 



This species arrived on the south-eastern and southern coasts 

 o£ England, possibly extending as far west as Dorset, 



The first reports were from Northamptonshire and Sussex 

 on the 8th and 14th of April, and small numbers seem to 

 have straggled into the country between the latter date and 

 the 18th. It was not until the 20th that any marked influx 

 took place, and during that and the two following days a 

 considerable number arrived on the coast between Essex and 

 Hampshire. 



The advent of these migrants was at once apparent by the 

 increase in numbers in the southern and eastern counties and 

 an extension westward into Wiltshire, Dorset, Devonshire, 

 Somerset, Gloucester, Monmouth, Worcester and Shropshire. 

 From the 26th to the 29th a second immigration took place 

 over the same area, the records indicating a similar spread 

 to the west and north-west, the first arrival in Yorkshire 

 being recorded on the 29th. By that date the greater 

 number of our Nightingales seem to have arrived ; by the 

 4th of May they had begun to nest and the normal number 

 had settled down in several localities. Small numbers of 

 migrants, however, continued to arrive till the end of the 

 second week of May, viz. : on the 3rd, 7th, 8th_, and 11th, 

 but their effect on the numbers already present was not 

 appreciable. 



Nightingales were nesting in Suffolk on the 1st of May, in 

 Hampshire on the 5th, in Somerset on the 8th, in Cambridge 

 on the 9th, and in Berkshire on the 13th; while nests with 

 eggs were found in Essex on the 10th, in Oxford on the 19th, 



