326 PHILOMELA LUSCINIA. 



With all the anxious enthusiasm of youth I resolved to judge 

 for myself of the powers of song in birds, and to begin by study- 

 ing first those of the Nightingale, the very bird which had 

 attracted my regard in its plain brown garb, and most modest 

 mien. The part of France in which I then was, proved, as I 

 thought, remarkably well adapted for this purpose. Rambling 

 occasionally between Rheims and the capital, during the genial 

 season at which this distinguished songster appears there in 

 considerable numbers, and keeping away from the main roads, 

 I would seek all such byeways as were deeply cut beneath the 

 surface of the country around, and especially such as were well 

 supplied with tall and well-set hedge-rows, in the neighbour- 

 hood of orchards, and almost close to the cottages of the hum- 

 ble tillers of the soil. In solitudes like these I was sure to 

 meet with Philomel. Now perched scarcely ten or fifteen feet 

 from the ground, on some branch of a thicket, I have watched 

 it on its first appearance, in the beginning of April, as for 

 several days the males which I observed exhibited an appear- 

 ance of lassitude and melancholy almost painful to me. Silent, 

 still, and in a position almost erect, the Nightingale would 

 stand, as if in a state of stupefaction, for more than an hour at 

 a time, or until, pricked by hunger, it would fly to the ground, 

 hop over it in a direct line, and meeting with an insect, would 

 seize it precisely in the manner of a Thrush. By this, Reader, 

 I would have you understand that after having spied its prey, 

 the bird stopped for an instant, quickly bent its legs, lowered 

 its head without changing as it were the general position of its 

 body, then took up the insect, and swallowed it at once, looked 

 around, and flew to the very twig which it had a few moments 

 previously left. On all such occasions, during those few days 

 of lassitude, and indeed at almost all other periods of the stay 

 of this species in France, the least attentive observer will see 

 that on its alighting on a branch to rest, a certain tremulous 

 action of the wings takes place, whether those members droop 

 or are in their ordinary position. 



" After three or four days the birds evidently became more 

 circumspect or shy, while a corresponding improvement took 

 place in their aspect. Their motions, though not quick at any 



