1 24 The Nightingale. 



the bird should not come annually, like the cuckoo, is not 

 known. Probably our neighbourhood does not supply 

 the kind of food that Nature intends for it ; and as it 

 is stated that this most poetical of all birds has a special 

 fondness for districts where the cowslip grows wild plen- 

 tifully, which is not the case near Manchester, where the 

 flower is scarcely known, and the insects associated in 

 nature with cowslips are of course absent likewise, or 

 nearly so, the suggestion as to the cause of the bird's 

 absence may at all events be received as reasonable till 

 a better one is supplied. The nest of the nightingale 

 is usually constructed in some thick and impenetrable 

 hedge. The hen-bird, while sitting, is quiet, and not 

 easily alarmed. She has another protection in the cir- 

 cumstance of her lord taking up his position at some 

 distance from the nest, so that there is no exact clue to 

 the locality. 



The nightingale utters notes which, once heard, can 

 afterwards never be mistaken. The song is in every 

 respect remarkable, beginning with a sort of pretty dalli- 

 ance, and gradually becoming richer ; still, as has often 

 been observed, it is not what can be called sad or 

 melancholy, though we have the authority of Milton for 

 the latter epithet. The songs of birds are always songs 

 of pleasure ; and the probability is, that we transfer the 

 state of our own minds, induced by wandering in the 

 quiet country, in the darkness of evening, when the soul 

 retires into itself, to the music of the bird, and fancy 



