THE NIGHTINGALE. 123 



year after year in the bushes and hedges of a certain hill- 

 side, the position of which it would be unsafe to indicate 

 particularly, and taking their station two or three hundred 

 yards apart from each other, set up a rivalry of song which 

 is surpassingly beautiful. At this season, one may hear 

 five or six chanting at once ; every break in the song of 

 the nearest being filled up by the pipings or wailings of 

 the more distant ones. The male birds arrive several days 

 before the females, and employ the interval, it is fancifully 

 said, in contending for the prize in a musical contest. This 

 period is anxiously watched for by bird-catchers, who have 

 learnt by experience that birds entrapped before they have 

 paired will bear confinement in a cage, but that those 

 captured after the arrival of their mates pine to death. 

 The Nightingale being a fearless bird and of an inquisitive 

 nature is easily snared ; hence, in the neighbourhood of 

 cities, the earliest and therefore strongest birds fall ready 

 victims to the fowler's art. 



It must not be supposed that this bird sings by night 

 only. Every day and all day long, from his first arrival 

 until the young are hatched (when it becomes his duty to 

 provide for his family), perched in a hedge or on the branch 

 of a tree, rarely at any considerable height from the ground, 

 he pours forth his roundelay, now however obscured by the 

 song of other birds. But not even by day is he shy, for 

 he will allow any quietly disposed person to approach near 

 enough to him to watch the movement of his bill and 

 heaving chest. At the approach of night he becomes silent, 

 generally discontinuing his song about an hour before 

 the Thrush, and resuming it between ten and eleven. It is 

 a disputed point whether the Nightingale's song should be 

 considered joyous or melancholy. This must always remain 

 a question of taste. My own opinion is, that the piteous 

 wailing note which is its most characteristic nature, casts a 

 shade of sadness as it were over the whole song, even those 

 portions which gush with the most exuberant gladness. I 



