BLYTH ON THE NIGHTINGALE. 



203 



but as it is well known that caged nightingales that have no nestlings 

 to provide for, cease to sing at precisely the same time with the wild 

 birds, we must of course endeavour to assign some other cause for its 

 silence. 



The very partial distribution of this bird can only be accounted for 

 by a peculiarity of food, which may be found in some places and not 

 in others. Montagu observes that the young were principally fed upon 

 a kind of small green caterpillar. It has been said, that the nightin- 

 gale may possibly not be found in any part but where cowslips grow 

 plentifully ; and with respect to Devonshire and Cornwall this coinci- 

 dence is just, but in the woods of Norwood and Dulwich near London, 

 where the nightingale is extremely abundant, the cowslip is not found. 

 Like all other small migratory birds, it will return year after year to the 

 spot where it first took up its abode ; and I have thus often noticed it in 

 gardens and places where I never should expect to have found it, 

 but which were probably at one time more shrubby, and more congenial 

 accordingly to its general habits. 



Nightingales in confinement are rather hardy birds, and at their first 

 appearance in the spring are taken by the bird-catchers in considerable 

 numbers. They are usually caught with what is called a nightingale 

 trap, baited with a meal worm : and are fed by them on chopped meat 

 and egg, a food upon which they seem to thrive very well. When first 

 caught, they generally feed the bird about every two hours ; taking 

 it in the hand, and opening its beak with a quill, giving it four or 

 five bits of food of the size of a pea, to entice it to eat. They will soon 

 feed of themselves, and generally begin to sing in about a week. In 

 captivity they usually recommence singing about the latter end of No- 

 vember, and continue in full song until the beginning of June. 



There can be little doubt but that this bird is the arjbwv of Aristotle, 

 notwithstanding he says that when it loses its voice at Midsummer, a 

 remarkable change of colour takes place in its plumage ; the rest 

 of his description accords entirely with the natural history of our night- 

 ingale, and it is possible tViat he might have mistaken the mottled nest- 

 ling plumage of the young birds for a change of colour in the adults. 

 The young of the various willow- wrens are much yellower than the old 

 birds, and I have several times been informed that the willow-wren 

 (under which name the different species are commonly confounded) 

 becomes much brighter coloured in the autumn ; a mistake of course 

 arising from the above circumstance. The arjBcov of the Grecian poets, 

 however, refers, I suspect, to a different species. Homer compares 



