32 
years. Sir John Sinclair tried a similar experiment in Scotland, and 
with similar results. 
Most of the poets speak of the nightingale in the feminine gender. 
This probably arises from the legend of Philomela being changed into 
a bird. There is another mistake, that it sings only by night; whereas 
it sings on andoff from 4 a.m., sometimes alldayand through the evening 
and night up to 2 a.m. Its singing depends on the weather. Should it 
be hot, it is generally silent from 11 a.m. till the evening, but if the 
day is slightly overcast, accompanied by misty rain, it will sing all day. 
Bechstein says there are day and night songsters—that is, birds 
which sing by day and are silent by night and vice verséd. During the 
months of May and June, 1848 and 1849, he proved by observations 
that the same bird sang by day and by night; this might be proved 
by watching particular places, for each bird had its own singing ground. 
The power of song possessed by the nightingale is thus expressed by 
Syme in his “ British Birds.” ‘‘ The notes of soft-billed birds are finely 
toned, mellow, and plaintive; those of the hard-billed species are 
sprightly, cheerful, and rapid. This difference proceeds from the con- 
struction of the larynx. As a large pipe of the organ produces a 
deeper and more mellow-toned note than a small pipe; so the trachea 
of the nightingale, which is wider than that of the canary, sends forth 
a deeper and more mellow-toned note. Soft-billed birds also sing 
more from the lower part of the throat than the hard-billed species. 
This, together with the greater width of the larynx of the nightingale 
and other soft-billed warblers, fully accounts for their soft, round, 
mellow notes, compared with the shrill, sharp, and clear notes of the 
canary and other hard-billed songsters.” 
The song of other birds, whén compared with that of the 
nightingale, was weak. The canary was valued, when its song 
partook of the tones of the nightingale. The blackcap was 
considered to be the only bird that could, in point of song, vie 
with the nightingale, without being wholly eclipsed. The only 
bird, in his opinion, worthy of being compared with him, was the 
thrush. The voice of this bird possessed about the same compass as 
that of the nightingale. So much do some thrushes, especially when 
their voices are mellowed by distance, resemble the nightingale, that 
it required a nice ear to distinguish the one from the other. 
After relating his own experience in catching and training the night- 
ingale, he remarked that the bird, when properly fed and carefully at- 
tended to, would live many years in confinement; but his birds 
