A HISTORY OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 349 



Ihe season — at least as a general rule ; and the true cause of the cessation of tfceir 

 melody is very evident on dissection. Should the male bird, however, be deprived 

 of his mate, he will sometimes (as proved by an experiment of Montagu) endea- 

 vour to attract another by resuming his strains ; but I am disposed to regard 

 this as an exception rather than the rule. I know, from direct observation in the 

 case of the Robin, that birds do not always try to win a second mate when the 

 first is destroyed ; and the instance to which I allude is the more remarkable, as 

 the death of the female happened early in April. 



In ordinary circumstances, when the Nightingale is pouring forth his music, 

 concealed in a bush, he will not suffer himself to be approached too near ; and 

 though he does not immediately fly, he ceases to sing, and signifies his displeasure 

 by emitting the peculiar harsh croak already spoken of, and which resembles the 

 sound err, or carre, pronounced with a rolling of the r's ; and if upon his repeating 

 this three or four times, the intruder should not retire, he flits to another bush, 

 where he immediately recommences his abrupt stanzas ; yet if we advance 

 gradually, and by slow degrees, so that he should not be startled (and he will 

 oftentimes thus permit of a closer approach than the generality of singing birds), 

 he will then sometimes shew himself; and warble loudly within a couple of 

 yards of the spectator, when the considerable dilatation of his throat will be very 

 obvious, and when it is impossible not to admire the lightness and elegance of 

 his form and movements, particularly as shewn by the amazingly long hops 

 which, with effortless ease, he takes from bough to bough. 



The song-notes of the Nightingale are less innate than in the generality of 

 singing birds, in consequence of which those individuals which are raised in 

 captivity are far less musical than the birds which are captured wiid in spring — 

 that is, unless they are brought up under a wild- caught bird of their species. 

 Mr. Sweet remarks, that " a young Nightingale is apt to catch all that it hears, 

 and to be deficient of many of the ordinary notes of its species. I had one," he 

 continues, " for three years, and it never sung a stave worth listening to ; at 

 length I turned it out \jt may be presumed about the end of summer, when it 

 had discontinued singing, for earlier in the season it would undoubtedly have 

 proceeded northward], and it remained in the gardens round the house till it left 

 the country in autumn ; it returned to the same place the following spring, where 

 I instantly recognized it by its bad song ; and it continued in the neighbourhood 

 all the summer, and bred up a nest of young ones."* This case will suffice to 



* The individual observation of the author bf British Warblers may doubtless be extended to 

 the whole species, but we entirely disagree with Mr. Blyth in his inference from the circumstance. 

 We believe the song-notes of the Nightingale to be as innate as those of any other feathered 

 chorister ; the only difference being, in our opinion, in the relative development of the faculty 

 bf Imitation, which, exercised early, causes the bird to acquire strains which modify or wholly 

 absorb its more natural melody Ed. 



VOL. III. — NO. XXII. 3 A 



