NIGHTINGALE AND CUCKOO'S MATE.
If there is anyone who desires to hear a nightingale and has failed, now is the chance. I never remember to have heard so many. They are almost as common as chiffehaffs in my neighbourhood, which is certainly not peculiarly con- genial to them—indeed, I have gone a season without hearing a single bird. They sing nightly in almost every suitable spinney - or brake or wide hedge ; and the pairs have now come together and look like nesting. The numbers are not due to a temporary rest in the course of migration. Cuckoos 8193 are many ; but I have never known such an absence of the cuckoo's mate or wryneck. A correspondent has written an entreaty for information on its whereabouts ; but since the letter came I have not once heard the queer laughing notes, generally common enough, or seen the distinctive long and brown bird on its favourite elms.
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