Nightingale

Nightingale, any bird of the Passerine genus Daulias of the Thrush family, with two species from Europe, western Asia, and north Africa. The Common Nightingale (D. luscinia) is nearly seven inches long; the plumage is alike in both sexes - rich chestnut-brown above, with a rufous tinge on the tail, greyish-white beneath, deepening in hue on the breast. These birds visit England, arriving about the middle of April, the males coming first by some days, and numbers are then taken by the bird-catchers. Birds captured thus do better in confinement than those trapped after pairing. Nightingales are locally distributed during their stay, chiefly in the south and east, a few ranging to the west, and to Glamorganshire and Brecknockshire, but they do not visit Scotland or Ireland. They frequent groves, small shady copses, woods, quiet gardens, and thick hedgerows, and feed on worms, insects, and insect-larvae. The nest is made in a hollow in the ground, or in a low fork in a thick bush, and the eggs - olive-green in colour - are generally five in number. The song of the nightingale, which has been famous from the earliest times, and celebrated by poets of almost every land, is the love-song of the male, and ceases when incubation is over. The Thrush-Nightingale (D. philomela), a Continental species, is slightly larger, and has the breast spotted.