Resorts of Nightingales. 295 
CHAPTER XVI. 
NOTES ON BIRDS—NIGHTINGALES—CHAFFINCHES—MIGRA- 
TION—PACKING-—-INTERMARRIAGE—PEEWITS—CROWS— 
CUCKOOS—GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 
THE nightingale is one of the birds whose habit of 
returning every year to the same spot can hardly be 
overlooked by anyone. Hawthorn and hazel are 
supposed to attract them: I doubt it strongly. If 
there is a hawthorn bush near their favourite nesting- 
place they will frequent it by choice, but of itself it 
will not bring nightingales. They seem to fix upon 
localities in the most capricious manner. In this par- 
ticular district they are moderately plentiful ; yet in 
the whole of a large parish (some five miles across) 
they are only found in one place. The wood which 
is the roosting-place of all the rooks, large as it is, 
has but one haunt of the nightingale. Just in one 
special spot they may be heard, and nowhere else. 
But having selected a locality, they come back to it as 
tegularly as the swallows. 
In another county in the same latitude there is a 
small copse of birch which borders a much-frequented 
