32 GRAHAME'S DESCRIPTION. 



Nightingales' eggs and the young birds rich prizes, although, 

 the latter can very seldom be reared and reconciled to 

 confinement. The only chance of this is to get a male 

 bird, taken directly it arrives in this country, and before 

 it has paired. For these the bird-catchers are always on the 

 look-out, and the numerous captures which they effect 

 must necessarily disturb the balance of the sexes, and 

 diminish the number of these sweet songsters. We could 

 almost wish for a despotic government to issue an ordi- 

 nance similar to that promulgated in the Ehenish pro- 

 vinces a few years since, forbidding the catching of 

 Nightingales under a penalty. 



As a companion picture to Rowe's we give the fol- 

 lowing more elaborate one by Grahame : 



Up this green woodland path we '11 softly rove, 



And list the Nightingale ; she dwelleth here. 



Hush ! let the wood-gate gently close, for fear 



Its noise might scare her from her home of love. 



Here I have heard her sing for many a year, 



At noon and eve ay, all the livelong day, 



As though she lived on song. In this same spot, 



Just where the old-man's-beard all wildly trails 



Its tresses o'er the track and stops the way, 



And where that child the fox-glove flowers hath got, 



Laughing and creeping through the moss-grown rails, 



Oft have I hunted, like a truant boy, 



Creeping through thorny brakes with eager joy, 



To find her nest and see her feed her young : 



And where those crimpled ferns grow rank among 



The hazel boughs, I 've nestled down full oft, 



To watch her warbling on some spray aloft, 



With wings all quivering in her ecstasy, 



And feathers ruffling up in transport high, 



And bill wide open to relieve her heart 



Of its out-sobbing song ! But with a start, 



If I but stirred a branch, she stopt at once, 



And, flying off swift as the eye can glance, 



In leafy distance hid, to sing again. 



Anon, from bosom of that green retreat, 



Her song anew in silvery stream would gush, 



With jug-jug-jug and quavered trilling sweet ; 



Till, roused to emulate the enchanting strain, 



From hawthorn spray piped loud the merry Thrush 



Her wild bravura through the woodlands wide. 



