[ 3°3 ] 
on the fame fpot during the whole year, but happens 
not to be attended to, from the reafons I have before 
fuggefted ? 
I am therefore convinced, that if I was ever to live 
in the country during the winter, I fhould fee night- 
ingales, becaufe I ihould be looking after them, and 
I am accordingly informed, by a perfon who is well 
acquainted with this bird, that he hath frequently 
obferved them during this feafon *. 
If it be afked, why the nightingales are all this 
time mute? the anfwer is, that the fame filence is 
experienced in many other birds, and this very mute- 
nefs is, in part the caufe why the bird is not attended 
to in winter. 
I muft now afk thofe who contend for the migra- 
tion of a nightingale, what is to be its inducement 
for eroding from the continent to us ? a fwallow, in- 
deed, may want flies in winter, if it days in Eng- 
land; but a nightingale is juft as well fupplied with 
infedts on the continent, as it can be with us after its 
paflage f. I muft alfo afk, in what other part of 
* I find they have alfo been feen in France during the winter. 
See a treatife, intitled, Aedologue, Paris 1751. p. 23. 
f I have omitted the mention of a more minute proof, that this 
bird cannot migrate from the continent, from the having kept 
them for fome years in a cage, and having been very attentive 
to their fong. 
Kircher (in his Mufurgia) hath given us the nightingale’s 
notes in mufical chara&ers, from which it appears that the fong 
of a German nightingale differs very materially from that of an 
Englifh one : now, if there was a communication by migration 
between the continent and England, the fong of thefe birds would 
not fo materially differ, as I may, perhaps, fhew, by fome ex- 
periments I have made, in relation to the notes of birds. 
I have before mentioned, that Mr. Fletcher, who was embaf- 
fador from England to Ruffin in che time of Queen Elizabeth* 
the 
