They are chiefly brought from Vienna to Thuringia, whence they have the name of Vienna Nightingales. Some people make a business of fetching them from Hungary, in the beginning of April, where they buy them cheap, in order to sell them very dear, in Saxony and other remote provinces. Those from Hungary are preferred to the Polish. A distinguishing characteristic is, that they first pronounce the _davitt_ or _jacob_ only once when they call; while the second repeat _davitt_ many times in succession.
At Thorn, and all along the Vistula, where the common and the large nightingale equally abound, the latter is called the Polish Nightingale, and the former, the Nightingale of Saxony. The nest of the greater nightingale is built like that of the nightingale; but the eggs are larger, and of an olive brown, with dark shades.
These birds are caught like nightingales; their diseases, also, are similar; but they appear to suffer still more when moulting; they become dull and ill, and often die under it. It is usual to give them at this crisis some spiders, and the grubs which gnaw wood; what, however, after many experiments, appears most salutary, is the Golden Tincture of Halle[86], one or two drops of which are poured into the drinking-trough.
Sylvia atricapilla, BECHSTEIN; La Fauvette à tête noire, BUFFON; Die schwarzköpfige Grasmücke, BECHSTEIN.
This distinguished singer among birds, bears, in Germany, the name of _Monk_, or _Moor_, from the black or brown cap which covers the top of his head. These two colours have led some to divide them into two species, but it is quite certain that they only designate the sex; the black marking the male, and the brown the female. Its length is five inches and five-sixths, two and a half of which belong to the tail. The beak is five lines in length, formed like that of the nightingale, and is of a brownish blue, with the edges of the lower base and the interior of a yellowish white; the iris maroon; the feet ten lines high, are dark ash-colour; all the top of the head is black; the cheeks and upper part of the neck are light ash-colour; the upper part of the body, as well as the coverts of the wings, ash-colour, tending to olive; the under part of the body is light grey, fading to white under the belly and breast; the sides and thighs are the same colour as the back; the under coverts of the tail and wings are speckled gray and white; the pen-feathers and tail-feathers are dark brown, edged with the colour of the back.