NOTES ON AN AUGUST NIGHTINGALE. 23 



with both rain and sun. It did not sing the full spring song, of 

 course. There was no high pipe and no jug ; but merely the 

 irregular notes which are interspersed among those finer ones, 

 and are very largely used by indifferent singers. But though 

 the notes were few, there was no mistaking their richness, 

 power, and volume ; no other bird in England has a voice of the 

 same quality. And anyone who knew the Nightingale's song 

 would have recognised the notes at once, and could have identified 

 the bird by them. These little runs of notes were sometimes 

 interrupted by the frog-like croak. The " song " which this 

 individual bird used was somewhat of the same character as 

 that which we sometimes hear from Blackcaps and Garden 

 Warblers late in the summer. These birds do not sing their full 

 song, or, indeed, more than a few notes, at that season. They 

 do not sing the autumn song — here, at all events. But Mr. Tait, 

 writing of the Blackcap in Portugal, where it is resident, says its 

 song may be heard all through the year except in November, 

 December, and January, being more vigorous in spring and 

 fainter in July and August, during which months the bird 

 moults. From this I gather that it sings there the autumn song, 

 in September and October {vide 'Ibis,' 1887, p. 91). The 

 Willow-Wren sings fairly well in early autumn {i.e., the bird's 

 autumn), and the Chiffchaff gets his full song in September 

 generally. But I only put these efforts of my Nightingale on a 

 footing with the performances of the Blackcap and Garden 

 Warbler, occasionally heard at the end of summer. 



One sees and hears very little of the Nightingale after it has 

 ceased singing ; or, at all events, after it has reared its young. 

 I only remember once before seeing a Nightingale in August, 

 and that was on the 12th in 1894, when walking with Mr. 

 Howard Saunders on Foxcomb Hill, near Oxford, but in Berk- 

 shire ; and I should like to know if anyone, who lives where 

 Nightingales are common, has heard these birds singing even a 

 few notes in the late summer. 



The near relationship of the Nightingale to the crepuscular 

 Bobin suggests the possibility of the former singing in its winter 

 quarters. But this is unlikely, unless there is some district 

 where the Nightingale as a species is found all the year round — 

 though the individuals inhabiting it may not be the same all 



