24 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
unless, perhaps, its more frequent recognition is 
simply due to closer observation. The Nightin- 
gale appears in most localities by about the third 
week of April, though like most birds which are 
heard more easily than seen, in cold seasons it may 
be with us for some days before the weather 
encourages it to sing. Its song is always most 
impressive at night, and most of all so when it 
breaks upon our ear for the first time for many 
months out of the solitude of the midnight garden 
or thicket ; but it is quite wrong to suppose that 
it sings only by night, and equally mistaken to 
think that it is the only nocturnal singer, though 
it is certainly the most conspicuous one. It sings 
for barely six weeks in all, being but seldom heard 
after the first week in June, by which time the 
young are hatched, and, by a strange contrast, the 
only note of the Nightingale (except for an equally 
inarticulate chirp, sometimes uttered on the same 
occasions) is the guttural and almost frog-like 
croak by which it expresses its uneasiness for its 
threatened nest or young. With a little stillness 
and caution it is not at all difficult to get a clear 
view of a singing Nightingale, as he often mounts 
to a conspicuous bough or spray in the upper part 
of the thicket. Though scarcely a richly coloured 
bird, he is none the less a handsome one, being 
warm brown on the upper parts, kindling into 
