314 BIRD WATCHING 



its being known, for certain, which is which. For 

 myself, I go with the general opinion in this respect, 

 yet it is difficult to summon up in imagination the 

 effect that the clear, joyous notes of the thrush might 

 have upon one, did they ring out in the silence and 

 stillness of the night. And if this is true in regard 

 to the thrush, does it not apply still more to the 

 skylark ? — a bird whose lovely and long-continued out- 

 pouring, uttered, as it is, in the day and all around 

 — common, and therefore, of necessity, undervalued — 

 may yet, as it appears to me, in spite of such a 

 disadvantage, well challenge comparison with the 

 song of the nightingale itself If we look to effect, 

 at any rate, the former bird seems to have inspired 

 poets as highly, or almost as highly, as the latter. 

 Then we have an opinion which, perhaps, may have 

 been that of Shakespeare himself, who was a rare 

 lover of music, that 



The nightingale, if she should sing by day 

 When every goose is cackling, would be thought 

 No better a musician than the wren. 



Now the nightingale does sing by day, and, as a 

 matter of fact, she is then thought at least no better 

 than the lark or thrush — in fact, she is, like these, 

 often not noticed at all, as I have had some oppor- 

 tunities of observing. This, at least, shows that some 

 of the effect produced upon some of us by this bird's 

 song, is due to that added and exquisite poetry which 

 night and silence gives to it. We have no other 

 night-singing bird who is sufficiently common, and 

 whose song is at the same time sufficiently distin- 

 guished for it to attract much attention, and there- 



