3i6 BIRD WATCHING 



public would. How I should rejoice to be accused — 

 yes, and even convicted — of having no ear for the 

 song of the nightingale, if only it could be discovered, 

 also, that " critics " who, with a natural incapacity for 

 seeing beauty in beauty, yet step modestly forward 

 to teach us, and dance as fantastically on the body of 

 a dead poet as did ever a Lilliputian on that of the 

 sleeping Gulliver, are neither profound nor discerning 

 nor even literary, but merely dull dogs posing, of 

 which sort, indeed, most " great oneyers " keep their 

 pack. Yet I wish they could leave the imperfections 

 of Shakespeare (which they discern in his master- 

 strokes) as utterly beyond them, and busy themselves 

 only with the perfections of such Baviuses and 

 Mceviuses as it is their wont to crown. I commend 

 them to old Bunyan with his " ' Then,' said Mr 

 Blind-man, ' I see clearly ' " — and so pass on. 



The sweet song of the nightingale has caused the 

 more stress to be laid upon the sobriety of its colour- 

 ing, the natural tendency being to exaggerate such a 

 contrast. But now, when one watches for the bird 

 in the shade of leafy thickets, the way in which it 

 generally reveals itself is by a sudden flash of red or 

 chestnut brown, a bright spot of colour which is con- 

 spicuously visible, sometimes even in the centre of a 

 thorn-bush, and, one may almost say, brilliantly so, 

 as its wearer flits amongst the trees and undergrowth. 

 This brightness belongs to the tail generally, but there 

 must, I think, be either upon or just above it — on the 

 upper tail coverts, perhaps — a specially bright and 

 more ruddy-hued patch which produces the effect of 

 which I speak ; and as nightingales habitually haunt 

 wooded and umbrageous spots, it has sometimes 



