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Genus DAULIAS. 



Ficedula apud Brisson, Orn. ii. p. 397 (1760). 



Motacilla apud Linnseus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 328 (1766). 



Sylvia apud Scopoli, Ann. I. Hist. Nat. p. 154 (1769). 



Curruca apud Koch, Baier. Zool. i. p. 154 (1816), 



Luscinia apud C. L. Brehm, Isis, 1828, p. 1280. 



Daulias, Boie, Isis, 1831, p. 542. 



Philomela apud Selby, Brit. Orn, i. p. 206 (1833). 



Lusciola apud Keyserling & Blasius, Wirbelth. Eur. i. p. 58 (1840). 



Erythacus apud Degland, Orn. Eur. i. p. 499 (1849), 



The Nightingales are by far the best songsters amongst all our European birds. They have 

 much in common with both the Thrushes and Warblers, differing from the latter chiefly in 

 being more slender in build and having the tarsi and tail longer. There are only two, closely 

 allied, species of this genus found in the Western Paleearctic Region, ranging south into North 

 Africa — and two very slightly differing from them, Daulias liafizi (Severtz.), which inhabits 

 Persia, and Daulias golzii, which inhabits Turkestan. 



The Nightingales inhabit groves and woods, and are exclusively insectivorous, searching for 

 their food chiefly on the ground. They form an open nest of leaves, and deposit four or five 

 eggs of a uniform olivaceous-brown colour. 



Daulias luscinia, the type of the genus, is a very plainly coloured bird. Its bill is moderate 

 in size, straight, nostrils basal and nearly round ; wings moderate, the first quill short, about 

 as long as the coverts, second longer than the fifth, the third longest ; tail rufous, slightly 

 rounded ; bristles on the gape very small ; tarsus long, slender, with either one long plate or 

 else obsoletely scutellate, and four inferior scutellse ; claws short, the middle toe with claw much 

 shorter than the tarsus. 



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