BIRD-SONGS 



the morning, and again at sundown, and perch above 

 your tent, and blow his soft, reverberant note for 

 many minutes at a time. The strain repeats the 

 echoes of the limpid stream in the halls and corri 

 dors of the leafy woods. 



While in England in 1882, 1 rushed about two or 

 three counties in late June and early July, bent on 

 hearing the song of the nightingale, but missed it by 

 a few days, and in some cases, as it seemed, only by 

 a few hours. The nightingale seems to be wound up 

 to go only so long, or till about the middle of June, 

 and it is only by a rare chance that you hear one 

 after that date. Then I came home to hear a nightin 

 gale in song one winter morning in a friend s house 

 in the city. It was a curious let-down to my en 

 thusiasm. A caged song in a city chamber in broad 

 daylight, in lieu of the wild, free song in the gloam 

 ing of an English landscape! I closed my eyes, 

 abstracted myself from my surroundings, and tried 

 my best to fancy myself listening to the strain back 

 there amid the scenes I had haunted about Hasle- 

 mere and Godalming, but with poor success, I sus 

 pect. The* nightingale s song, like the lark s, needs 

 vista, needs all the accessories of time and place. 

 The song is not all in the singing, any more than 

 the wit is all in the saying. It is in the occasion, the 

 surroundings, the spirit of which it is the expression. 

 My friend said that the bird did not fully let itself 

 out. Its song was a brilliant medley of notes, no 

 35 



