386 
XIII. 
NOTES ON THE NIGHTINGALE. 
An extract from a letter by the Rev. R. Sheppard, of 
Wrabness, Essex, to the Rev. W. Whitear, of Starston, 
Norfolk, dated 29th September, 1819. 
(Communicated by Miss Mary Whitear.) 
Read 28th March, 1882. 
[By the kind permission of Miss Whitear, of Starston, to 
•whom the Society ■was recently indebted for some interesting 
extracts from the “Calendar” of her late father, the Rev. W. 
Whitear, E.L.S. {ante p. 231 — 262), and who has so recently 
presented her father’s collection of eggs to the Norudch Museum, 
Ave are enabled to publish the following very interesting notes 
on the habits of the Nightingale from the pen of Mr. J. Harrison. 
They were transcribed in full by hir. Sheppard, to whom they 
were communicated in the first instance, and embodied with other 
ornithological records, though not of sufficient interest for repetition, 
in a letter to his friend Mr. Whitear. Mr. Harrison’s observation 
in the postscript to his letter, as to the priority of appearance of 
the male Nightingale and other summer-migrants is perhaps the 
earliest record of that fact, as it is now generally admitted to be.] 
I shall conclude with a long letter from my friend Harrison, which 
is worthy of Gilbert White himself : — 
“Great Oakley, Sept. 2, 1819, 
“Dear Sir, 
Whoever has an ear capable of being pleased with 
the song of birds, cannot fiiil of being delighted to the highest 
degree with the sweet note of the Nightingale, whilst walking 
abroad on a still pleasant evening in the month of hlay. Before 
