THE NIGHTINGALE. 
Takes up again her lamentable strain 
Of winding woe, till, wide around, the woods 
Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.” 
You will generally find two-thirds of the brood to be hen 
birds ; therefore, if you are content to take only the cocks, the 
parents will still have a tolerably large family left. Indeed, it 
cannot be an uncommon event, when the nest is undiscovered, 
for one or two of the fledglings to be missing, as they have a 
habit of scrambling out of the nest long before they are able 
to fly ; and if the parents happen to be away at such times, 
they chance to furnish a sweet mouthful to some bird or animal 
of prey. 
Before you set out nightingale nesting, take care to provide 
yourself with a small box (half a large cocoa-nut shell is as 
good as anything) well lined with the softest and warmest 
material you can procure. In this you must place the fledg- 
lings the moment you take them from the nest, or they will 
certainly take cold and die in a few hours. Take especial care 
that they are kept from draught and cold, and feed them upon 
ants, ants’ eggs, and shredded mealworms, mixed with the crumb 
of French roll over which scalding milk has been poured. 
When they are five or six weeks old, you may put them in a 
cage, in which, if you can procure it, you should place dry 
mould taken from an ant-hill to the depth of half an inch. If 
you cannot get this, place in the cage a handful of wheat- straw. 
The diet of ants’ eggs and sopped bread may be continued, or 
instead you may give them the following ingredients, well 
pounded together so that it is perfectly smooth: soaked 
bread crust, barley-meal, and carrot, in equal quantities. Or, 
raw sheep’s heart shredded very fine, an egg boiled hard and 
pounded, and the crumb of good white bread. 
A Good Nightingale Trap. — The time at which the night- 
ingale is most easily caught is early in April, and birds caught 
at this time are considered the best. There are various ways 
of snaring them, but in my opinion that which promises the 
greatest success is the following : — 
Scoop out of the ground, in the vicinity of their haunts, a 
hole about eighteen inches long, a foot wide, and ten inches 
deep ; stick two or three pegs into the bottom of the trench, 
just firm enough to support a flat piece of board a foot long 
and nine inches wide. Cover this tiny platform with earth, 
and sprinkle on it some ants and mealworms. Then have 
another piece of board, rather larger than the hole, which must 
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