[70] I purchased two at Coblentz, which lived some time in England. Individuals have been sold in London for seven pounds.—Translator.
[71] It is not found in Britain.—Translator.
[72] The food of the caged nightingale is probably not sufficiently nutritious for the reed thrush; no doubt, also, it injures the stomach; perhaps the number of meal-worms with which it is supplied should be increased; and small beetles should be offered to it, whose wing-cases and claws, not being digested by the insectivorous bird, serve to purge the stomach; its food, in short, should resemble as much as possible that of its natural condition.—Translator.
[73] There are some countries which appear not adapted for nightingales, and in which they never stop, as in France, in Le Bugey, as high as Nantua, a part of Holland, North Wales, the north of England, excepting the county of York, and all Scotland and Ireland.
[74] In Italy they arrive in March, and depart in the beginning of November. In England they arrive in April and May, and depart in the month of September.
[75] The means of always having a plentiful supply of meal worms is to fill a large earthenware or brown stone jar with wheat bran, barley or oatmeal, and put into it some pieces of sugar paper or old shoe leather. Into each of these jars, of about two quarts in size, half a pint of meal worms is thrown (these may be bought at any baker’s or miller’r), and by leaving them quiet for three months, covered with a bit of woollen cloth soaked in beer, or merely in water, they will change into beetles (Tenebrio Molitor, Linnæus). These insects soon propagate by eggs, which renew and increase the number of maggots so much that one such jar will maintain a nightingale.—Author.
[76] Many persons who are not in a situation to buy ants’ eggs (improperly so called, since they are the pupæ in their cocoons), will doubtless be glad to know the method used for getting them out of the ant-hill. A fine sunny day in summer is chosen, and, provided with a shovel we begin by gently uncovering a nest of the large wood ants (Formica rufa, Linnæus), till we arrive at the eggs; these are then taken away, and placed in the sun, in the middle of a cloth whose corners are turned up over little branches well covered with leaves. The ants, in order to protect the eggs from the heat of the sun, quickly remove them under the shelter which is prepared for them. In this manner they are easily obtained freed from dirt, and from the ants also. In the absence of a cloth a smooth place is chosen, around which some small furrows are cut, over which the branches are laid, which leads to the same result.—Author.
[77] English bird-catchers also express the phrases of the nightingale by words, or particular names, sweet, jug, sweet, pipe rattle, swetswat, swaty, water bubble, skeg, skeg, whitlow, whitlow, and the like.
[78] I possess a nightingale which repeats these drawling melancholy notes often thirty or even fifty times. Many pronounce gu, guy, gui, and others qu, quy, qui.—Author.
[79] These syllables are pronounced in a sharper clearer manner than the preceding lu, lu, &c.