Tlin MGiniXGAI.E. 171 



banks or thick bottoms of hedges, while the inside is lined towards the bottom with fine 

 fibrous roots or hair. The eggs are fonr or five in number, of an olive brown colour ; 

 the young are hatched in June. Like those of otlicr birds, they are exposed to perils : — 



" The uiglitiiif^alc, 

 "When i-etuniiiig with her loaded bill, 

 The astonished motlier finds a vacant nest. 

 By the hard hands of unrelenting clowns 

 Eohb'd ; to the ground the vain provision falls ! 

 Her pinions ruffle, and low di'ooping, scarce 

 Can bear the mounier to the poplar sluide ; 

 "VA'hcrc, all abandoned to despair, she sings 

 Her sorrows through the night ; and in the bougli 

 Sole sitting, still at every dyLng fall 

 Takes up agaui her lamentable strain 

 Of winding woo ; till, wide around, the woods 

 fSigh to lier song, and with her wail resound." 



The principal food of the nightingale is the caterpillars of moths and the lar\;iD of 

 beetles, . some of which feed only at night ; these arc especially numerous in damp 

 weather, when vegetation is succulent, and the nightingale soon finds sufficient food to 

 satisfy his wants. Organised for the Titteranco of certain notes and modidations, he has, 

 at the same time, an instinctive impulse to sing, and, also, the faculties of imitalion and 

 memory. The strain itself has to be learned, but this is acquired from his parents, and 

 wlien tlie proper season arrives, joyously poured forth. It lias been remarked that young 

 male nightingales begin to warble before their tails are quite grown ; but if tlms captured, 

 the}' must be put under the instruction of a nightingale which is a good singer, or they 

 will only be stammerers. 



A change, too, comes o'er tlie spirit of his song in June, arising not from the loss of 

 voice, but from a change of object and hence of note. His song ceases when his 

 mate has hatched her brood ; vigilance and anxiety then succeed the harmonies which 

 have been heard before, and his "croak" is the warning of suspicion or danger to the 

 mother bird and their infimt brood. 



The poets have often made this bird their theme. It is thus celebrated b}' one of the 

 Elizabethan poets, Dnmimond of Hawthornden : — 



Sweet bird ! that siug'st away the early hours 

 Of winters past, or coming, void of care, 

 "Well pleased \vith delights, which present are,— 

 Fair seasons, budding spra3's, sweet smelling flowers ; 

 To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers ; 

 Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, 

 And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare, 

 A stain to human sense in sin that lowers : 

 What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs 

 (Altered in sweetness,) sweetly is not driven, 

 Quite to forget earth'sjui-raoils, spites, and wrongs, 

 And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven ? 



Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise 



To airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' lays. 



Ilurdis, in his simple and beautiful verse, tlius addresses the nightingale :- 



. Xow I steal along a woody lane. 



To hear thy song so various, gentle bird, 

 Svreet c^ueeu of night, transporting Pliilomel. 

 I name thee not to give my feeble litre 

 A grace else wanted, for I love thy song, 

 And often have I stood to hear it sung, 



