NIGHTINGALE. 
101 
e^reat regularity, the Avliole has much the form and size 
of a half expanded water-lily. The oak leaves thus curi¬ 
ously arranged are interwoven with strips of bark, and 
portions of dry rushes, so as to form a very solid and thick 
nest; and the inside is lined with long fibres of bark, roots, 
and a few hairs. Such a structure, although in strict har¬ 
mony with the habits of the Nightingale, must, we think, 
have more of poetry than comfort in it, as not a single 
substance of warmth or softness enters into its composition. 
This nest contained four eggs when taken, but five are fre¬ 
quently found ; they are in colour oil-green, as represented 
in the plate, and roundish in form. Some vary from this 
description, and are much longer in form, paler in the 
ground-colour, and mottled with olive-brown. The young 
birds soon leave the nest, and flutter among the underwood 
and hedge-rows. If their place of concealment is at this 
period discovered, the old birds are most clamorous in their 
expressions of anxiety, and frequently repeat sharply the 
word tack! 
The attachment of this species to its young, and its grief 
at their loss, have been noticed by many writers, ancient and 
modern. Our friend, the Rev. E. .1. Moor, sends us, on 
this subject, a memorandum from his journal: “ One even¬ 
ing, while I was at college,” he says, “ happening to drink 
tea with the late Rev. J. Lambert, Fellow of Trinity, he told 
me the following fact illustrative of Virgil’s extreme accu¬ 
racy in describing natural objects. We had been speaking 
of those well-known lovely lines in the fourth Georgic on 
the Nightingale’s lamentation for the loss of her young, when 
Mr. Lambert told me that riding once through one of the 
toll-gates near Cambridge, he observed the keeper of the 
gate and his wife (who were aged persons) apparently much 
dejected. Upon inquiring into the cause of their uneasiness, 
the man assured Mr. Lambert that he and his wife had both 
