36 
PICTURES OF BIRD LIFE. 
ordinary distribution of the bird in England. It is thus all but unknown in 
Cornwall and Devon, though the latter county especially seems eminently fitted for 
it, and wholly unknown in Ireland. It is local and rare in North Somerset, found 
plentifully on the Wye near Tintern, and more rarely through Herefordshire, Shrop¬ 
shire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, to about five miles north of York. In Lincolnshire 
it is local, though some have thought that each year of late it has penetrated to more 
northern districts. The Oxford and Cambridge college gardens are famed for this 
bird, and Norwich is a very city of Nightingales. In Scotland it is unknown, and 
an attempt to introduce it into Caithness by Sir J. Sinclair, who placed Nightin¬ 
gales’ eggs sent to him from London in robins’ nests, proved an utter failure. The 
Nightingales were, indeed, hatched, but in September they flew off never to return. 
On the Continent it occurs in Austria and as far north as Funen. In Greece 
it is as common as of old. It is found, too, in Arabia and Egypt, and breeds in 
the valley of the Jordan. With us it arrives, according to White and Markwick’s 
calendar, and begins to sing in April. The bird-catchers take a great many of the 
males (which arrive some ten or fourteen days before the females), but multitudes ol 
these birds speedily die. Copses, thick bushy plantations near water, and the like 
are favourite localities of the Nightingale. It is said, too, that this bird is fond of 
a place with an echo. From pairing-time to the hatching of the young the male 
bird sings his best, day and night. The nest is loosely constructed of dead leaves, 
bents, and the like, and is placed on or near the ground. The eggs are five or six 
in number, olive-brown in colour, sometimes passing into red. The food of the bird 
consists of insects, especially meal-worms, and berries. The male birds cease their 
serenades when they have to supply the little ones, and then White notices of 
them:—“ Nightingales, when their young first come abroad and are helpless, make a 
plaintive and a jarring noise, and also a snapping or cracking, pursuing people 
along the hedges as they walk. These last sounds seem intended for menace and 
defiance.” Towards the end of August the Nightingale leaves us again for his 
winter abodes in the East. 
Almost all the interest connected with the Nightingale centres in its song. Jesse 
points to it as a special instance of the power of emulation in causing birds to sing, 
especially at pairing-time. “ At such time two Nightingales may be heard pouring 
forth their delightful notes, both day and night, near each other. When a female 
arrives a contest takes place for her, and when her choice has been made, the 
rejected bird quits the locality and resumes its song in some other quarter.” The 
bulbul is a near relative of the Nightingale, and sings beautifully, but is, perhaps, 
