NIGHTINGALE 



4235 



NIGHTINGALE 



tions past, was given her when she was called 

 the "Swedish Nightingale." The cardinal bird 

 (which see) of America is often called the Vir- 

 ginia nightingale, 



The nightingale is a bird of Western and 



Central Europe. It is about six inches long, 



per parts of a russet-brown color, chang- 



Tho sunrise wakes the lark to sing ; 

 The moonrlse wakes the nightingale. 

 Come, darkness, moonrlse, everything 

 That is so silent, sweet and pale: 

 Come, so y- \v;tk-- the nightingale. 



ROSSETTI : Bird- Rapture. 



ing to reddish on the rump and tail, and the 

 under parts whitish. It is most at home in se- 

 cluded woodlands and hedges, especially along 

 streams. It lives entirely upon insects, which 

 it obtains from the ground, and it has the 

 same habit of hopping rapidly at intervals and 

 then standing motionless, as if listening, that 

 is observed in the robin. 



The nightingale rears but one brood in a 



season, building its nest near the ground in 



hedges or thickets. The eggs, from four to six 



in number, are a deep olive-brown, unspotted. 



bird is migratory, spending its winters in 



a and southern Kurope. The sweet notes 



of this songster have a plaintive quality tint. 



>:!:><! with its fondness for the night, gives 



it the name of "melancholy." Milton thus ad- 



drcssta the mirlitmu ik in // Pcnst r 



Sweet bit nolne of folly. 



Moat muMlral. mom 



Thee, chauntreu, oft. the wood* among. 

 I woo. to hear - song. 



NIGHTINGALE, FLOUNCE (1820-1910), an 



KnirlMi philanthropist, born at M 

 \vh<> became the most famous nurse in the 

 "oil ildhood was spent chiefly in Der- 



l>\>hire. England, where she was privately edu- 

 cated. She very early showed her characteris- 

 tic delight in helping the unfortunate; the 



I-: NH;HTINJAIJ-: 



dearest pleasure of her childhood was that of 

 nursing sick animals and bandaging broken 

 dolls. Long before reaching womanhood she 

 would travel many miles to help an infirm or 

 ailing person, and she was known throughout 

 Derbyshire for her 

 .-kill in the sick- 

 room. Her social 

 position was such 

 that she could 

 have spent her 

 time in the high- 

 est society of 

 Kngland, but she 

 disliked such ac- 

 tivities. She at 

 length refused to 

 consider marriage 

 or any work other 

 than that of nurs- 

 ing, and in order 

 to be prepared in 

 every detail went to hospital schools in Kaisers- 

 wi-rth. Germany, and in Paris. 



In 1854 tales of the suffering of British sol- 

 diers in the Crimean War began to reach linn- 

 land, and although the newspapers were com- 

 pelled to suppress the great er part of such 

 enough reached Miss Nightingale to com 

 her that she was needed among those sufferers. 

 She wrote to the British War Secretary, offer- 

 ing her services as a nurse, and on October 24, 

 1854, left London with a staff of thirty-* 

 trained assistants and a shipload of hospital 

 supplies. She reached Scutari just in time to 

 be of service to the great number of wounded 

 from the Battle of Balaklava. Probably such 

 confusion and suffering had never before been 

 seen in a hospital. Most of the surgeons were 

 dead or dying; there were no medicines, beds 

 or cots; there were not even clean bandages 

 for the wounded. She found on her arrival 

 that the death rate was forty-two per cent, but 

 In r executive ability, resources and enthusiasm 

 that she ultimately restored or- 

 der and reduced the rate to two per rent. 



She was soon given ntire charge of the hos- 

 pital service for the Bnti>h troops in th. 

 and worked so unceasingly that in the sun. 

 of 1856 she was prostrated and never regni 

 lur health. A British man-of-war was sen- 

 I -nng her home, and preparations for a great re- 

 "ii were made in London; but upon hear- 

 ing of the plans she slipped 

 French vessel. The grateful English, howe 

 raised a fund of $150.000 for her; but in s 



