326 



Burroughs did hear was, after all, the song of the nightingale, 

 seeing that the song by that time has so many imitators ; 

 and it does not appear that Mr. Burroughs saw the bird 

 which gave the short shower of notes he set down as those 

 of the nightingale. " Its start," he says, " is a vivid flash of 

 sound. On the whole a highbred, courtly, chivalrous song ; 

 a song for ladies to hear leaning from embowered windows 

 on moonlight nights ; a song for royal parks and groves, 

 and easeful but impassioned life. We [Americans] have no 

 bird-voice so piercing and loud, with such flexibility and 

 compass, such full-throated harmony and long-drawn ca- 

 dences, though we have songs of more melody, tenderness, 

 and plaintiveness. None but the nightingale could have 

 inspired Keats's ode that longing for self-forgetfulness after 

 the oblivion of the world, to escape the fret and fever of life 



' And with thee fade into the forest dim.' " 



One very common error about the nightingale, as observed 

 in the text, is that it sings only at night. But it is to be 

 heard through the day also only, the chorus of other birds' 

 songs then make it less emphatic and noticeable. Another 

 error is that it is only to be heard in remote places, and in 

 the depth of woods and great gardens. Nothing could be 

 farther from the fact. The nightingale is often to be heard 

 by day singing in the most exposed places ; often by hedge- 

 rows, the edges of plantations and underwoods, by the very 

 sides of much frequented roads and pathways. 



A writer in the Spectator of May 13, 1893, has thus 

 described the nest and eggs of the nightingale, though 

 he fails to note some of the places in which Mr. Rawson 

 and others have found the nest : 



" The eggs and nest of the nightingale are both so beauti- 

 ful and so unlike those of any other English bird, that it is 

 impossible to mistake them when once seen. The site is 

 nearly always chosen among the brown and dead oak or 

 Spanish chestnut leaves which lie on the ground among the 



