350 A HISTORY OP THE NIGHTINGALE. 



intimate, what is familiar to all practical observers, that birds of passage return 

 to their former place of abode ; and it further incidentally hints that the superb 

 song of a Nightingale is formed while the bird is young, and that it cannot after- 

 wards be improved. 



Mr. Sweet continues : — * A female that I had been keeping for six years, I 

 also turned out along with him ; this bird I kept four years, and it never attemped 

 to sing ; the fifth year it sang frequently, a pretty, soft, Nightingale's note. I 

 have found this to be the case with several female birds ; they do not sing till 

 they become aged ; but it is not an unexceptionable rule, as I have had a female 

 Willow-wren that sung when quite young." — The father of Natural History, 

 Aristotle, remarks, of the singing birds generally, that " some females sing like 

 their males, as appears among Nightingales, but the female gives over song when 

 she hatches." Lord Bacon, too, observes " that the males, among singing birds, 

 are ever the better songsters;" which is as qualified a statement as that of Buffon, 

 to the effect that " the females are much more silent than the males, song being 

 generally withheld from them." — " In Nightingales," says Montbeillard, " as in 

 other species, there are some females which enjoy certain prerogatives of the male, 

 and particularly participate of his song. I saw a female of that sort which was 

 tame ; her warble resembled that of the male, yet was neither so full nor so 

 varied ; she retained it until spring, when, resuming the character of her sex, she 

 exchanged it for the occupation of building her nest and laying her eggs, although 

 she had no mate." Aldrovandus, however, in deducing lessons of morality 

 from this bird, most gallantly observes that the female ought to be imitated in 

 her silence by women, who, " in his time,'' on the contrary, were (I must not 

 venture to translate it) " loquaculce, argutulce, verhosce, dicaculce, linguaces, gar- 

 rulce, et arcanorum minimal tenaces !!!" — I have known an instance of a eage 

 Song Thrush, a remarkably fine songster, which was accordingly always considered 

 a male until it was two years old, when one morning an egg was found in its 

 cage, and a day or two afterwards another. In some birds, as the Common 

 Bullfinch, and Cardinal Grosbeak of North America, both sexes sing alike ; but 

 most generally, as in the instance of the common Linnet, the song of the female 

 is weaker and less varied than that of the male. 



Concerning the longevity of Nightingales, Bechstein remarks that " in con- 

 finement, after these birds have reached six years, they begin to sing less 

 frequently, and with less brilliancy and ornament. A Nightingale," he adds, 

 " may, by proper management, be kept in confinement fifteen years. I even 

 know an instance of one attaining the age of twenty-five years in captivity." — 

 It is therefore impossible that he can be correct in assigning so early a limit to 

 the full powers of this splendid vocalist. 



Mr. Salmon (Naturalist, Vol. II., p. 52) records an instance of a pair gf 



