I79I* HISTORY or THE NIGHTINGALE. 12$ 



he cries Whoo ! whoo ! whoo ! and I fancy juft as cle- 

 verly as your's do f ." 



The nightingale is perhaps one of the moft local of 

 all finging-birds ; he fcldom flies above thirty yards, 

 and in general keeps very clofe among the hedges and 

 bufhes. At night he perches on a branch, and begins 

 his love elegies, or fprightly madrigals, to his miftrefs. 

 His tone is mellower than even the fweet, harmonious, 

 plaintive v/ood-lark : his execution and compafs fuper- 

 lative ; and there is in the round of his fong a delight- 

 ful intermixture of fprightlinefs that prevents his beau- 

 tiful love-ditty from cloying the ear with too much 

 un£tion. 



But it is not only, f>iys the noble hiftorian of the 

 Nightingale, in tone and variety that this bird excels ; 

 lie fings, if I may fo exprefs myfelf, with fuperior 

 judgment and tafte. I have therefore commonly ob- 

 fer\^d that my Nightingale began foftly, like the an- 

 cient orators, vcferving its breath to fweli certain notes, 

 which by this means had a moft aftonilhing efFeft, and 

 which eludes all verbal defoription. 



This ciixum.Rance I have often with high pleafure ob- 

 fer\-ed in Somerfetfliire. I was a great admirer, at that 

 time, of old ritt, afterwards Lord Chatham's fpeaking 



+ Mr Macquhirter of Inglifgreen, near Edinburgh, bleacher, a 

 goiitlcnian, thuugli no prcfeffed naturalift, who is yet fo attentive an 

 obfcrvcr as to allow nothing to efcape notice that comes within the 

 fphcrc of his obfer .-ation, ir.fcrtns nie that he has for feveral years pafl 

 been miK h delighted with the finjfing of a bird whirh is heard a!l nijht 

 !or.g, during a. certain part of the year. It firft, he fays, begins to be 

 heard fome time in April, and continues to iing till about the end of 

 June. The note he fays is foft, plaintive, and varied ; but he does not 

 ^cfcribe its powers with all the rapture that poets exprcfv in defcribing 

 tlnir favourite I'hilomcl. It is a I'mall bird he fays, of brownifh plum- 

 age, it is feldoni feen. Whether this hi the true Nightingale, as 

 fecms to be probable, or if it be only the Red-fiart, which, from its 

 finging alfo during the nigiit-time, has been called by fome the Mock- 

 Nightingale, I (hall not pretend to fay ; but it feems impoflible to deny 

 f h It it muft be either the one or the other ; a little time and experience 

 will footi difcovcr wHich it is. As no buildings are n;ar, nor tl'.ick 

 vroodi^, it h agalnll the F.-: d-aart. Rfit. 



