Our Summer Migrants / An Account of the Migratory Birds Which Pass the Summer in the British Islands.

THE NIGHTINGALE. ( Philomela luscinia. )

In common with one or two allied species, the Nightingale differs so materially in structure and habits from the garden or fruit-eating warblers (Sylvia), with which it has been generally associated, that most naturalists nowadays are agreed in regarding it as the type of a separate genus (Philomela). For want of a better English name, and as indicating their haunt, the members of this genus may be called “thicket warblers.” As regards structure, they differ from the Garden Warblers in having the bill less compressed towards the tip, and wider near the gape; the legs much longer and not scutellated, the toes more adapted for walking than perching. In habits they are more retired, concealing themselves in thickets and copses, living a good deal on the ground, where they find the principal portion of their food, and building a loosely-constructed nest on or near the ground, instead of a more compact structure at a distance from it.

The sole representative of this genus in England is the far-famed Nightingale; and of all the summer migrants to this country, no species probably has attracted more attention, or given rise to more speculation and discussion amongst naturalists. The most remarkable fact in connection with its annual sojourn in England is its very partial distribution. When we find this bird in summer as far to the westward as Spain and Portugal, and as far to the northward as Sweden, we may well be surprised at its absence from Wales, Ireland, and Scotland; and yet it is the fact that the boundary line, over which it seldom if ever flies, excludes it from Cornwall, West Devon; part of Somerset, Gloucester, and Hereford; the whole of Wales (À fortiori from Ireland), part of Shropshire, the whole of Cheshire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland. I am well aware that the Nightingale has been stated to have been heard and seen in Wales, Cumberland, and even in Mid-Lothian (see “Zoologist,” p. 241); but, even if they could be relied on in every case, which is doubtful, these instances can only be regarded as exceptional. In those counties only to the east of the line indicated can the bird be considered a regular summer visitant. Mr. Blyth has expressed the opinion[11] that the Nightingale migrates almost due north and south, deviating but a very little indeed either to the right or left. “There are none in Brittany,” he says, “nor in the Channel Islands, and the most westward of them probably cross the Channel at Cape la Hogue, arriving on the coast of Dorsetshire, and thence apparently proceeding northwards, rather than dispersing towards the west; so that they are only known as accidental stragglers a little beyond the third degree of western longitude.” They arrive generally about the end of the second week in April, and it is a well-ascertained fact that the males invariably precede the females by several days. In 1867 three London birdcatchers, between April 13 and May 2, took 225 Nightingales, and the whole of these, with five or six exceptions only, were cock birds. The previous year these same bird-catchers had supplied the dealer by whom they were employed with 280 Nightingales, of which not more than sixty were hens. From these statistics we may infer that in no locality would Nightingales be more plentiful if unmolested than in the neighbourhood of London; but if one dealer only is instrumental in capturing between 200 and 300 in the season, it is easy to account for the scarcity of the species. On the arrival of the hen birds the cocks soon pair, and assist in building, during which time, and during the time the hens are sitting, they are in full song. When the young are hatched the males leave off singing, and busy themselves in bringing food to the nest.

The song generally ceases before the end of the first week in June. Occasionally, however, I have heard a Nightingale sing on throughout June, but accounted for this by supposing that the nest had been robbed, and that the cock was singing while the hen hatched a second brood. Naturalists who live in London need not travel more than five miles from Charing Cross to hear the Nightingale in full song. Nay, a friend who is well acquainted with the note, has heard the bird frequently in Victoria Park, which is only two miles distant from the Bank of England, and on several occasions attentive observers have recognized the unmistakable notes of the Nightingale in the Botanical Gardens, Regent’s Park, and in Kensington Gardens.

It is curious how wide-spread is the belief that the Nightingale warbles only at eve. The reason, no doubt, is that amidst the general chorus by day its song is less noticed or attended to. But that it sings constantly by day is a fact, of which we have satisfied ourselves repeatedly. Moreover, it is by no means the only bird to sing at night. The Sedge Warbler, Grasshopper Warbler, Woodlark, Skylark, and Thrush, may often be heard long after sunset; while the Cuckoo is frequently to be heard at midnight, and the Landrail constantly.

It would appear that of the large number of persons who profess a love for song birds very few, comparatively, have the ear to distinguish a song unless they can see the author of it. Hence it frequently happens that they listen to a Thrush or Blackcap in the early spring, and immediately inform their friends that they have heard the Nightingale weeks before it has reached this country.

Many poets have perpetuated the odd belief that the mournful notes of the Nightingale are caused by the bird’s leaning against a thorn to sing! Shakespeare, for example, in his “Passionate Pilgrim,” says:

“Everything did banish moan,

Save the nightingale alone.

She, poor bird, as all forlorn,

Lean’d her breast up-till a thorn;

And there sung the dolefull’st ditty,

That to hear it was great pity.”

These lines, by the way, although generally attributed to Shakespeare, and included in most editions of his poems, were written, it is said, by Richard Barnefield in 1598, and published by him in a work entitled “Poems in divers humors.”[12] Shakespeare’s Lucrece, however, invoking Philomel, says:

“And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part

To keep thy sharp woes waking.”

Fletcher speaks of

“The bird forlorn,

That singeth with her breast against a thorn.”

And Pomfret, writing towards the close of the seventeenth century, says:

“The first music of the grove we owe

To mourning Philomel’s harmonious woe;

And while her grief in charming notes express’d,

A thorny bramble pricks her tender breast.”

The origin of such an odd notion it is not easy to ascertain, but I suspect Sir Thomas Browne was not far from the truth when he pointed to the fact that the Nightingale frequents thorny copses, and builds her nest amongst brambles on the ground. He inquires “whether it be any more than that she placeth some prickles on the outside of her nest, or roosteth in thorny, prickly places, where serpents may least approach her?”[13]

In an article upon this subject published in the “Zoologist” for 1862 (p. 8029), the Rev. A. C. Smith has narrated the discovery on two occasions of a strong thorn projecting upwards in the centre of the Nightingale’s nest. It cannot be doubted, however, that this was the result of accident rather than design; and Mr. Hewitson, in his “Eggs of British Birds,” has adduced two similar instances in the case of the Hedge Sparrow.

The nest of the Nightingale is a very loosely-made structure, composed for the greater part of dead leaves, and placed upon a hedge bank, generally at the root of some stout shrub or thorn. The eggs, usually five in number, are, like the bird itself, of a plain olive-brown colour. The young Nightingales are spotted like young Robins, having the feathers of the upper portions of the plumage tipped with buff colour. In some respects the Nightingale assimilates very much in habits to the Robin; and advantage has been taken of this in localities where the Nightingale is unknown to introduce its eggs into the nests of Robins, with a view to having the young reared in the neighbourhood, and so induced to return to it. But although, as regards hatching and rearing, the plan has been successful, the birds have never returned to the place of their birth. For some inexplicable reason, a limit appears to be set to the migration of the Nightingale, which has no parallel in the case of other migrants.

As autumn approaches it moves southwards towards the Mediterranean, and spends the winter months in North Africa, Egypt, and Asia Minor. We cannot help thinking that the Nightingale and many other birds which visit us in summer and nest with us, must also nest in what we term their winter quarters; otherwise it would be impossible, considering the immense numbers which are captured on their first arrival, not only in England, but throughout central and southern Europe, to account for the apparently undiminished forces which reappear in the succeeding spring.

The late Mr. Blyth, however, was of a different opinion. Criticizing the above remarks, he wrote:—

“The only birds known to me that breed in their winter quarters are two species of Sand-martin (Cotyle riparia and C. sinensis). In India I have been familiar enough with birds in their winter quarters, and have no hesitation in asserting that migratory species (with the remarkable exceptions named) do not even pair until they have returned to their summer haunts. Were they to do so, I could not but have repeatedly noticed the fact, and must needs have seen very many of their nests and young.”

To my suggestion that from Mr. Layard’s observation of young birds there, the Common Swallow, H. rustica, probably breeds at the Cape during the season that it is absent from the British Islands, Mr. Blyth replied:—

“According to my experience of Hirundo rustica (and I have had the best opportunities for observation), it decidedly does not breed in its winter quarters. Some birds of this species, which pass their non-breeding season within the tropics, may migrate south instead of north, and breed in the summer of the southern hemisphere instead of that of the northern hemisphere; but there is no reason to suppose that they are the same individuals. Were it so, the Cape colony would indeed be flooded with Hirundo rustica. Besides, these birds renew their plumage (as the Cuckoo likewise does) when in their winter quarters; whereas the Sand-martins (Cotyle), as I am all but sure from recollection, resemble the great majority of our summer migrants in moulting before they take their departure equatorward. That our British Sand-martin (C. riparia) breeds in Egypt during the winter months is noticed in the “Proceedings of the Zoological Society” for 1863 (p. 288), and that its ordinary representative in India and the countries eastward (C. sinensis) does the same I can vouch from personal observation, having myself taken both eggs and young about the turn of the year from their burrows in the banks of the Hugli; while Mr. Swinhoe noticed their breeding when in their winter haunts, in the “Ibis’ for 1863, p. 257, and 1866, p. 134.”

BLACKCAP

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