COUNTRY LIFE
EVERY year a certain number of people ask me by letter where exactly and at what hours they can hear the nightingale. The sentiment in favour of the song seems to be stronger in urban than rural people. The density of the nightingale population, I think, slowly. diminishes as you proceed from, say, Hastings north and west. Few birds cross the Severn or an east-west line through mid-Lincolnshire. Surrey always swarms with nightingales and the song has been heard in Kew. The bird likes the retirement of a clump of bushes or a "double hedge " ; but it is not shy, indeed it seems to me to have a surprising fondness for the roadside. There is, for example, a stout hedge just outside Huntingdon where this year, as every year, a nightingale has been shouting night and day to the passers-by. As to the hour, when you come to June and the hey-day of song is over, the bird sings at a later and later hour. He is fond of the morning (but not the afternoon or evening) when he first arrives. A warm, moonlit night promotes singing.
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