OBIGINAL SKETCHES OF BBITISH BIRDS. 507 



The Nightingale (Daulias luscinia). 



I never once met with this bird in Herefordshire, and it is 

 certainly not in the habit of singing at my doors in Leicester- 

 shire, though in most years it turns up in comparative abundance 

 in a district with which I am very familiar — I refer to Maidwell, 

 in Northamptonshire, only about fifteen miles distant from my late 

 home. The best Nightingale year, so to designate it, I remember 

 in Leicestershire was in 1893. I l^new of four pairs of birds 

 that were nesting in the course of that summer in and about the 

 plantations which tend so materially to enhance the beauty of 

 the landscape in the immediate neighbourhood of Keythorpe. 



One of the greatest treats I ever enjoyed in connection with 

 the Nightingale occurred in the year above mentioned, when a 

 Nightingale condescended to pay my grounds a visit and remain 

 the best part of the spring months cheering us with its liquid 

 notes by day and night. It was said at the time that fifteen 

 years had elapsed since one had been heard in the village of 

 Skeifington. 



I am glad to add it found shelter and protection in my garden 

 for its nest, and, though the young stayed about in the bushes for 

 a short time after they could fly, the visit was not repeated in 

 1894, so the assertion that Nightingales always return to the 

 same haunts to nidificate, if unmolested, seems to require con- 

 siderable qualification, for, though my experience of the species 

 is, I fully confess, limited, I never knew a single instance of a 

 particular haunt in Leicestershire being frequented two years in 

 succession. Curiously enough, in connection with my Nightin- 

 gale, I had only a short time previously seen hounds pull a Fox 

 down in positively the very bushes where I had heard it on its 

 first appearance, and where subsequently it seemed to spend the 

 greater part of its time. It never sang on cold wet nights, and 

 its aversion to exhibit itself in public was palpable and pro- 

 nounced. 



One has only to watch a Nightingale for a few moments to 

 become impressed with the marked resemblance its movements 

 and actions bear to those of the Redbreast. On the other hand, 

 I have found it — unlike its allied species — none too willing to 

 admit of a close inspection, and have frequently been amused at 

 the mental struggle that has obviously gone on between its desire 



