BLYTH ON THE NIGHTINGALE. 



197 



can hardly be arranged even among the Sylviana. The other British 

 species to which the term Curruca has been applied, are the fauvette, 

 greater petty chaps, or garden warbler, (C. hortensis) ; the blackcap, 

 (C atricapilld) ; the babillard, or lesser whitethroat, or nettle-creeper, 

 (C. garrula); the whitethroat, (C. cinerea) ; the Dartford or furze warb- 

 ler, (C. Provinciatis) ; the reed warbler, (C. arundinacea) ; the sedge 

 warbler, (C. Phragmitis); and the grasshopper warbler, (C. locus- 

 tella). These have usually been divided into two sections; namely, 

 the " aquatic warblers," containing the three last ; and the " sylvan 

 warblers," comprising the remainder. The aquatic warblers form a 

 numerous and extremely natural group, possessing in common several 

 peculiarities, by which they may be at once distinguished from the 

 members of the other section. The sylvan warblers, also, excluding 

 the nightingales, form another very natural genus ; although, if we 

 compare the extremes, that is to say, the fauvette with the furze 

 warbler, we may still perceive considerable diversity both in form and 

 in habits j though certainly insufficient to warrant any generic separa- 

 tion. The nightingales, however, differ in so many particulars from 

 the other species associated with them in Curruca, that it is really sur- 

 prising they have never been separated, especially as genera have often 

 been founded on much slighter and more trivial differences. 



In the first place, the bill of the nightingale is formed differently 

 from those of the various warblers ; and, as is invariably the case, a dif- 

 ference in structure always intimates a diversity of habit. Accordingly, 

 the nightingale never touches fruit, of which the sylvan warblers are all 

 great devourers. The latter are very rarely seen upon the ground ; the 

 nightingale picks his chief subsistence there : they, when no fruit is to be 

 had, live principally on flies and other small insects ; the nightingale on 

 worms, beetles, and their grubs. I may here remark that nightingales 

 when wild feed very much upon earthworms ; though Mr. Sweet 

 observes, in one of his interesting notes to the late edition of White's 

 Selborne, that " there is scarcely any insects that they will refuse, 

 except the common earthworm and hairy caterpillars." This may be 

 true, generally, with respect to birds in confinement, but even in the 

 cage I have known one individual to be greedily fond of worms. Very 

 few caged redbreasts will deign to swallow an earthworm, but that red- 

 breasts feed very much upon worms when wild, is a fact familiar to 

 everybody. Birds in captivity are apt to become dainty, and having 

 at all times plenty of artificial food to their taste, will frequently reject 

 that which, in a wild state, they would have greedily devoured. 



