THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. 113 
But the music of birds has not this delightful effect 
upon all ; for I have known those who have been 
ordered by their physicians to more genial climes for 
the benefit of their health, express themselves annoyed 
by the incessant song of this sweet Philomel, who 
nightly serenaded them from the bay-trees which 
often grow almost in at the windows. 
It is said that nightingales never travel so far north 
as Northumberland and Scotland, nor are they to be 
found in Devonshire and Cornwall, although two of 
our mildest counties. Mr. Blyth accounts for it in 
the following way : — 
The nightingale, I think, appears to migrate 
almost due north and south, deviating but a very 
little indeed either to the right or left. There are 
none in Brittany, nor in the Channel Islands (Jersey, 
Guernsey, &c.) ; and the most westward of them pro- 
bably cross the channel at Cape la Hogue, arriving 
on the coast of Dorsetshire, and thence apparently 
proceeding northward, rather than dispersing towards 
the west, so that they are only known as accidental 
stragglers beyond, at most, the third degree of western 
longitude, a line which cuts off the counties of Devon- 
shire and Cornwall, together with all Wales and Ire- 
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