76 About the Feathered Folk. 



capture ! As to the exact truth 

 of this I can find no evidence; 

 but certain it is that at Lugano, 

 that loveliest of Italian lakes, I 

 heard such rivers of ravishing song 

 as surpassed anything I had sup- 

 posed could come from a small 

 bird's throat ; and I considered 

 myself pretty well versed in English 

 bird-music. I should dearly like 

 to go to Persia, and hear the 

 " bulbul " amongst the roses. After 

 that experience I could, perhaps, 

 gauge the comparative excellence 

 of the songs of East and West. 



The note of the Nightingale is 

 often called sad. It is not so to 

 me. The rush of it, the lift of it, 

 tells of anything but sadness. I 

 can echo the words of Coleridge 

 when he writes of 



" The merry nightingale, 

 That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates 

 With fast thick warbles, his delicious notes, 

 As he were fearful that an April night 



