Birds. 



8029 



The Nightingale's Nest. 

 By the Rev. Alfred Chaeles Smith, M.A. 



There is a tradesman living in this neighbourhood who is extremely 

 well acquainted with the habits and notes of the whole family of 

 warblers, and professes to have so accurate an ear as to distinguish 

 the several species readily by their voices when they are hidden from 

 his sight, but has devoted more attention to the nightingale than to 

 any other of our British songsters, and has been more successful many 

 consecutive years in rearing the young of that bird from the nest, and, 

 by means of very carefully and judiciously prepared food (concocted 

 of a variety of materials, which, when pounded together are meant to 

 resemble, as nearly as possible, in all essential particulars, artificial 

 caterpillars), has been enabled to preserve his melodious pets in full 

 health and song throughout the winter. 



I mention these particulars in order to show that he is no tyro in 

 the art, nor a superficial observer likely to be deceived ; indeed his 

 manner in relating the following incident proved him to my satisfaction 

 to be extremely cautious in coming to a conclusion, painstaking, accu- 

 rate and business-like in satisfying himself on the point he was investi- 

 gating, qualities of superlative value in the enquiring naturalist. 



The circumstance which he described to me, and which I consider 

 so remarkable as to be worthy of notice in the ' Zoologist,' is the dis- 

 covery, on two occasions, of a strong thorn projecting upwards in the 

 centre of the nightingale's nest, than which one can scarcely imagine 

 a more uncomfortable and inconvenient intruder, and the object of 

 which is extremely difficult to fathom. The one nest was at the bottom 

 of a thorn bush, not upon the ground, but within six or eight inches 

 of it, profusely garnished with beech leaves, and from the very centre 

 a large and sharp thorn protruded through the bottom of the nest : 

 when discovered it contained four newly -hatched young, which my 

 informant subsequently reared, and which he describes as lying on 

 either side of the thorn. The other nest was placed injhe middle of 

 a thick bush, not a thorn, but of what species he did not recollect, 

 about three feet from the ground : it was a large nest, of somewhat loose 

 workmanship, and, in like manner, a long thorn, or rather, in this 

 instance, pointed stake, issued through the nest, projecting upwards 

 above the top. In both cases there could be no mistake about the 

 matter, for each nest was easily examined, tolerably neat and tidy, and 

 the presence of the intruding thorn clearly not a matter of accident, 



