on the coming of the Nightingale.



189



Let me give you an illustration of what I mean. Frequently I am

away from home. The morning after I return, it has not infrequently

happened that there has been silence in the bird-room. The Nightin¬

gales had been fed in my absence—and, I doubt not, carefully fed—but

only mechanically fed. Something had gone out of their lives. Their

friend, the only person in the house who valued them at their true

value, had deserted them. On these occasions I have only needed to

slip on a dressing-gown, just a few words of greeting to each of

my musicians and a few mealworms, as a token of affection, and

back to bed again. Mark the result. In less than ten minutes first

one and then the other pipes a few notes, and in half an hour I have

my full orchestra.


Let us also note that the best situation for a bird-room is

next to one s bedroom. We are all of us pretty busy nowadays, and

practically the only time that most of us have for enjoying the songs

of the caged Nightingale is the hour between waking and dressing.


It follows that we should regard it as a virtue of the caged

Nightingale that he sings best in the early morning. But you can

also turn him on at night if you wish ; that is to say, if you are fortu¬

nate enough to have electric light in your house. Just switch on the

light in the bird-room for twenty minutes at any hour of the night,

and mark the result I am so far from civilisation that I have no

such convenience. But where there is a will there is a way. I have

a 4-volt damp hanging from the ceiling and an accumulator in the

attic above the bird-room. The apparatus is cheap and quite

effective.


I do not for one moment suggest that a bird-room fitted with

electric light is a really appropriate environment for the song of the

Nightingale; it should be heard beneath the silent stars and in the

hush of an early summer night. But those who cannot hear it

under these ideal conditions, can still hear it, if they have a real love

for music and a real sympathy for birds. Those, on the other hand,

who think that birds have no minds, and that the only necessary

conditions of success in aviculture are the purchase of a book of

directions and some patent foods, should give a wide berth to the

Nightingale and devote themselves to the homely parrot and the

vociferous Class III Roller—“ made in Germany.”



