98 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



In Father Faber's beautiful poem, "The Cherwell Water- 

 Lily, " are the following touching lines on this bird : 



" I heard the raptured nightingale 

 Tell from yon elmy grove his tale 

 Of jealousy and love 

 In thronging notes, that seemed to fall 

 As faultless and as musical 

 As angels' strains above ; 

 So sweet, they cast o'er all things round 

 A spell of melody profound ; 

 They charmed the river in his flowing, 

 They stayed the night-wind in his blowing, 

 They lulled the lily to her rest 

 Upon the Cherwell's heaving breast." 



The legend of the nightingale always singing with its 

 breast against a thorn arose from the idea that it nests 

 and roosts in thorny places to avoid serpents, to which it 

 was supposed to have a particular dread : 



" Au printemps, doux et gracieux 

 Le rossignol a pleine voix 

 Donne louange au dieu des dieux, 

 Tant qu'il faict retentir les boys. 

 Peur du serpent il chante fort, 

 Toute nuict et met sa poictrine 

 Contre quelque poignante espine 

 Qui le reveille quand il dort." 



Shakespeare in " Lucrece " says : " The adder hisses 

 where the sweet bird sings." 



The nightingale has its mythological history, and a very 

 sad one. Philomela, daughter of Pandion, despoiled by 

 Tereus, fled to the woods, and there, transformed into a 

 nightingale, with its breast pierced by a thorn, she pours 

 forth expressions of her misery and woe to the silent 

 listener of the night. Hence all the poets connect it 

 with melancholy and grief, also place the bird in the 

 feminine gender. The song is seldom or never heard after 

 the young are hatched. It is hardly necessary to say that 

 it is the male bird alone which sings. 



When the young are hatched early in June as a 

 rule the song ceases, and gives place to a croaking note 



