Nightingale
Nightingale names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Nightingale a small, reddish-brown
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a small, reddish-brown, thrush-like bird of the Old World, celebrated for the sweetness of its song. In England it is a modest, shy bird, haunting rich woods and thickets. It lives chiefly on insects, especially the larvae of ants. Like most insect-eating song birds, it is migratory, ranging from northern Europe to northern Africa. It appears in England in April but does not visit Wales, Ireland, or Scotland. The nest is built of grass and leaves, preferably near running water. The eggs, four to five in number, are olive green in color. The male is the singer. While the female is nesting, especially in the evening, he soars aloft pouring out a rich burden of song, as if too happy to contain his secret. When the young are hatched, he stops singing and busies himself hunting insects to fill open mouths. The male is a favorite cage bird. The nightingale is celebrated in literature. It is the Philomela of the poets. The name has been extended to a number of somewhat similar birds, including the bulbul of the Orient and one or more finches of our Southern States. See Philomela
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a European migratory species of birds, family of warblers or Sylvicolidæ. The males of the nightingale reach the S. counties of England sometimes in April, but more commonly not till the beginning of May; the by females do not arrive till a week or 10 days after the males. Migrating from the S., they visit the N. cou countries for the purpose of breeding, and the famed song of the male is his love chant, and ceases when his mate has hatched her brood. If by accident his mate be killed, the male resumes his song; and will continue to chant very late in summer unless he can attract, as he commonly soon does, another female. The nightingale feeds chiefly on the larvæ of insects. The nest is built near the ground; the eggs are four or five in number, of a uniform dark-brown color; the young are fledged in the month of June, and are ready to accompany the parents in their migration S. in the month of August.
Nightingale FLORENCE, an English philanthropist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FLORENCE, an English philanthropist; born in Florence, Italy, May 15, 1820. At an early age she manifested a keen interest in suffering humanity, and from philanthropic motives she visited the chief military hospitals in Europe, and studied the chief nursing systems. ms. From then on she devoted her life to the uplift of the pro fession of nursing and to the improvement and advancement of nursing and sanitation, both in hospitals and in the home. During the Crimean War (1854) the hospital accommodation was found to be very defective, and Miss Nightingale promptly volunteered to organize a select band of nurses at Scutari. The offer was accepted by the British War Office, and within a week Miss Nightingale was on invaluable service to the sick and wounded by her incessant labors in nursing and hospital reform. The strain, both mental and physical, which this work demanded permanently injured her health; yet notwithstanding her confinement to a sick-room, she continued to give her experience in the interest of hospital reform, and for this purpose she was consulted during the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. She published "Notes on Hospitals" (1859), "Notes on Nursing" (1860), "On the Sanitary State of the Army in India" (1863), "Notes on Lying-in Institutions" (1871); "Life or Death in India" (1873): etc. She received many acknowledgments of her services to humanity from many governments. One of the figures of the Crimean Memorial in Waterloo Place, London, is that of Miss Nightingale. She died in London, Aug. 13, 1910.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's put the bird among the warblers, "Sylvicolidae"; the common nightingale is now classed as Luscinia megarhynchos in the Old World flycatcher and chat family, Muscicapidae, and ringing and tracking studies show it winters in sub-Saharan Africa rather than merely northern Africa. Aiton's 1910 remark that it "appears in England in April" still holds, but the English population has collapsed by roughly 90 per cent since the late 1960s and the species is now on the UK red list, largely confined to the southeast. On Florence Nightingale, Collier's 1910 death date is right but her birthday was 12 May 1820, not the 15th — the date now marked worldwide as International Nurses Day — and modern historians stress something the entry barely hints at: she was a formidable statistician whose diagrams of army mortality helped force sanitary reform.
Written for this edition, 2026.