NIGHTINGALE. Sz 
late Rev. J. Lambert, fellow of Trinity College, he told me 
the following fact, illustrative of Virgil’s extreme accuracy in 
describing natural objects. We had been speaking of those 
well-known lovely lines in the fourth Georgic on the Night- 
ingale’s lamentation for the loss of her young, when Mr. 
Lambert told me that riding once through one of the toll- 
gates near Cambridge, he observed the keeper of the gate 
and his wife, who were aged persons, apparently much 
dejected. Upon inquirmg into the cause of their uneasiness, 
the man assured Mr. Lambert that he and his wife had 
both been made very unhappy by a Nightingale, which had 
built in their garden, and had the day before been robbed 
of its young. This loss she had been deploring in such a 
melancholy strain all the night, as not only to deprive him 
and his wife of sleep, but also to leave them in the morning 
full of sorrow; from which they had evidently not recovered 
when Mr. Lambert saw them.’’ 
The eggs, of a regular oval form, are of a uniform glossy 
dull olive brown colour. They are sometimes tinged with 
greyish blue, especially at the smaller end; some are greenish; 
others brownish green; some are paler, mottled with olive 
brown; and some are longer in shape than others. ‘They are 
four or five to six in number. They are laid in May, and 
are rather large for the size of the bird. The male and 
female both sit on them, but the latter the most. The 
young, which are hatched in June, often leave the nest and 
hop about on the ground in its neighbourhood before they 
are able to fly. 
Male; weight, about six drachms; length, six inches and 
three quarters. The upper bill is blackish brown, with a 
tinge of red, the lower one pale yellowish, and dusky brown 
at the tip; iris, dark brown, the feathers of the eyelids 
brownish white. Head, crown, neck on the back, and nape, 
uniform dull chesnut brown; chin and throat, dull greyish 
white; breast, pale greyish brown, but lighter again lower 
down. Back, reddish brown, varying considerably in different 
individuals, some being much more red, and others more 
ey. 
a The wings, of eighteen quills, have the first quill feather 
very short, the second equal in length to the fifth, the third 
the longest, the fourth almost as long. They extend to the 
width of ten inches and a half; primaries, secondaries, and 
tertiaries, reddish brown, the inner webs dusky brown. ‘The 
