A HISTORY OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 
351 
Nightingales breeding in captivity, some of the young of which were reared; and 
Bechsteif relates that— 44 It is said that a Nightingale and female Robin, turned 
loose into a room, will sometimes produce hybrids ; but,” he adds, 44 1 have no 
experience on the subject.” A friend of mine succeeded in pairing a Nightingale 
and Robin, which latter produced four eggs, but unluckily died, egg-bound, when 
about to produce a fifth. I regret that these were not deposited in the nest of 
some other species. 
In the wild state, the nest of the Nightingale, which is extremely difficult to 
find, is most commonly placed on the ground, often against a bank, among the 
fallen leaves of which it is principally or wholly composed; sometimes, however, 
it is situate in a heap, of faggots or Pea-sticks, on a low stump, or in the centre of 
a thick bush. Not uncommonly it is too frail to admit of removal; but, in 
general, it is not quite so loose; and I have seen some constructed of dead but 
undecayed Oak-leaves, stems, and a little Moss on the outside, which were 
tolerably compact, indeed very much so. Others are built exclusively of skeleton 
leaves, which usually (but not always) constitute the lining; and they appear 
to have been laid on wet, that they might adhere the better together. Occa¬ 
sionally a small quantity of Horse-hair is added to the lining. The eggs are 
from four to six in number (and not unfrequently these are not all hatched), of a 
dark greenish or brown colour, which is sometimes broken into small spots, 
commonly most numerous at the large end, which are of course darker on a lighter 
ground than when they are uniform ; they vary considerably in size. 
The young are hatched after a fortnight’s incubation; and quit the nest very 
early, as is the case with most other ground-building birds, while those that incubate 
in holes, more particularly, remain much longer: both sexes warble to them¬ 
selves, even before their tails are full grown; and the young females generally 
continue to do this, but in a weaker and more unconnected strain than the young- 
males, till the following spring, when they gradually leave off recording , as this 
desultory mode of singing is termed by the bird-fanciers , while the notes of the 
male sex rapidly increase in volume and loudness. The cry of nestling Nightin¬ 
gales is particularly harsh and disagreeable. 
In the Analysis of the Proceedings of the Academie des Sciences pendant le 
Mois de Jain, 1836, there is a letter from M. Nervaux, in which he reports 
that he has seen a pair of Nightingales remove their eggs from the nest, when 
this was threatened to be inundated, and that the eggs, placed in a new nest, 
were afterwards hatched. How the removal of them was effected—a matter 
surely possessing its full share of interest—is not stated; but we may presume 
that the feet were the instruments of prehension. 
That assiduous observer, the late Col. Montagu, has ascertained that the 
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