1 90 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



laugh at as impossible ; for the Nightingale, in Eng- 

 land at least, always ceases its song long before the 

 young are in a condition to learn it. Yet a lady, 

 whose truthfulness I cannot call in question for a 

 moment, has sent me a most explicit account of a 

 singing-lesson given by a Nightingale to his children 

 on the wooded slopes below the monastery of Cam- 

 aldoli in Italy. It was in May, when in Italy the 

 Nightingale might have brought up his first brood 

 and be still singing ; for I have myself heard this 

 bird in song on the Italian lakes in July. The 

 parent bird first sang his song in full, then went 

 through it in detail while the young ones did their 

 best to imitate it ; finally, getting wearied, he flew 

 to the other side of the valley and poured out the 

 complete strain once more " in full-throated ease." I 

 must leave this incident, faithfully reported to me, to 

 the judgment of men of science. 



Among the smaller birds noticed by Aristotle 

 there are many, as we might readily imagine, which 

 are very difficult to identify. And this is so not 

 only on account of the brevity of his descriptions, 

 but because the Greeks were so badly off for words 

 to represent the colours they saw. About black and 

 white, of course, there can be no mistake, but beyond 

 these all seems in confusion. For red there are two 

 words, 7rop(j)vpeo$ and </>om/ceo9, but these were used 

 in Aristotle's time apparently for all shades of 



