410 NOTES TO THE 
at early morning and twilight ; they do not sing much in the 
middle of hot days. If the woods had not been preserved there 
would not have been one nightingale left. Nightingales are caught 
almost anywhere, within a radius of twenty miles round the 
suburbs of London, such as Sydenham, Kew, Epping Forest, 
Edgeware, and Dartford. As a rule, the cocks arrive from eight 
to ten days before the hens, and wJien they arrive they take 
up positions, as the locality suits. They delight in hedgerows, 
copses, spinneys, &c. As soon as they arrive, if the weather 
is mild, they commence their song, but if the w^eather is cold 
and frosty, they keep very mute. They are caught in this 
manner : tlie bird-catcher finds a bush wdiich they frequent, he 
then makes a "scrape" with a hoe, that is, he turns up the 
ground to draw the attention of the bird, who comes to look 
for insects on the fresh turned ground. He then places the 
trap, baited with a meal-worm. If the birds attempt to 
ramble away they are driven back by pelting. A round net 
trap, about a foot across is used; it is baited with maggots or 
meal-worms placed on a pin. A vei'y enticing bait is a " black- 
beetle, belly uppermost," which is quickly seen by the bird. A 
pin is run through the blackbeetle and he is fastened to the 
cork of the trap, the playing of the legs attracts the nightin- 
gale, he " kurrs " when he sights the bait, presently down he 
comes, and on touching the bait is instantly netted. The 
" standing net " is better than the " Jack-in-the-box " trap.^ 
Tiie biid-catcher wheets and kurrs to the nightingale and does 
a portion of the song, thus : Churr, kurr, wheet the niglit- 
ingale answers by singing, as he thinks it is the challenge 
of another nightingale — a stranger come on his beat. In the 
autumn nightingales do not sing, they only wheet and kurr. As 
soon as they get clean moulted they leave this country. It is 
difficult to "meat off" nightingales, that is, to make them feed. 
In former times a live meal-worm was put into a glass tube, just 
large enough to hold him. The following is the plan now 
adopted. An ordinary watch-glass is placed in a small tin dish ; 
underneath the glass are placed live meal-worms, which of 
course keep crawling about round the edges of the inside ot 
the glass ; well scraped beef and hard-boiled egg are then piled 
round the outside edge of the glass. The birds seeing the worms 
moving about, come and peck at them, their beaks glance off 
the glass, and at almost every peck they get a little of the 
food. After they have been induced to feed, the glass is taken 
away and they feed themselves, and there is no further trouble. 
^ A trap wliere the net is concealed in a box. 
