SoxGS AND Call Notes. 185 



with llionsands and thousands of othors wlio liave 

 H.stcned to it for the first time, I was profoundly 

 disappointed. 



There are Nightingales and Nightingales, even- 

 ings favourahle and nnfavourahle to them, and 1 

 had the misfortune to hear a poor singer on a cold, 

 hi-ce/y evening, instead of a really good performer 

 on a halmy, moonlight night, and the result was 

 that I would have given half a dozen Nightingales 

 for a single Skylark off my native hills. 



\\\\\ the ])0('ts an<l iii\' ill fortune did the hird a 

 I't-al injustice, and 1 have since come to love its 

 c.\(|iiisitc song so much that 1 have thrown my 

 li('drn(»m window open and lain awake listening to 

 it thi-oughout nearly the whole of a moonlit Jime 

 night. The power and richness of its melody 

 grow u[oii oiic. until the nio^t pfejudiced of us 

 are liound to aihiiit that it is the prince of JU'itish 

 song hirds. 



( )f coin-se. its habit of singing in tlie shadowy still- 

 ness of the night when it lias n** rivals except of its 

 own species, and enjo\s the nndi\ided attention of 

 the listciKi', ;ie<-ount^ for a great deal of its po[)ii- 

 larity. and many peo])le who go out specially to 

 hear it hy night and helaud it do not even detect 

 its notes when uttered in the full chorus of the wood 

 by day. In fact, I have met lots of people living 

 in a Nightingale country who did not even know 

 that the l)ird sang by day at all. 



Yet, in spite of all the laudation of the poets 



