68 BRITISH BIRDS. 



stopped during the breeding-season. However, my present object is to 

 state my experience about the Nightingale. 



"Now my quarter-of-a- century's experience is this. In springs of 

 ordinary mildness the avant-garde of the cock Nightingales arrives in Kent 

 and on the Surrey hills from the 10th to the 14th of April, at Highgate and 

 Hampstead a few days later. These outposts are generally found in a few 

 favoured spots, known to every trapper of experience. During the next few 

 days the arrivals increase, and between the 18th and 24th comes a kind of 

 ' ugly rush,' because they are all making for the favoured spots. For a few 

 days it appears on these spots as if the world were to be eaten up by Night- 

 ingales ; and all the time a very obstinate fight is going on for the possession 

 of the favoured spot. Whether birds have any notion of mine and thine I 

 will not undertake to say ; but most birds keep during the breeding-season a 

 certain space free from any other bird of their own kind. The Nightingale 

 that maintains itself in the favoured spot must at least for a fortnight defend 

 it against all comers and rout them. I saw one morning four cocks in 

 deadly combat on Shooter's Hill. They were entangled in each other's 

 legs and wings, biting away all the time, and rolling for some distance like a 

 feathered ball along the high road. Well, those that get the worst in the 

 fight have to retire to less-favoured spots. The fight for place is pretty w^ell 

 decided by the 26th of April, which is about the time when the ladies 

 put in an appearance ; and then another fight begins. The cock has secured 

 an abode to receive his lady ; but sometimes several neighbouring cocks are 

 after the same lady, and she invariably goes with the conqueror. There are 

 always a few fast hens among the last batches of cocks, and there are always 

 a few slow cocks among the first batches of hens ; and if there be any thing 

 like abundance the slow cocks have to put up with what abodes they can get. 

 Being worsted in the fight or coming too late, they are induced to sit down 

 in out-of-the-way places ; but Nightingales will not stop in every place. I 

 never heard one on the Eltham side of Shooter's Hill nor on the Dulwich side 

 of Sydenham Hill, while on Penge Common they hung on as long as there was 



