THE NIGHTINGALE. 



149 



The third hung more remote, so that I could 

 not so well hear it as I lay a-bed. But it is 

 wonderful to tell how those two provoked 

 each other; and by answering, invited and 

 drew one another to speak. Yet did they 

 not confound their words, or talk both together, 

 but rather utter them alternately and of 

 course. Besides the daily discourse of the 

 guests, they chaunted out two stones, which 

 generally held them from midnight till morn- 

 ing; and that with such modulations and in- 

 flections, that no man could have taken to 

 come from such little creatures. When I 

 asked the host if they had been taught, or 

 whether he observed their talking in the 

 night, he answered, no: the same said the 

 whole family. But I, who could not sleep 

 for nights together, was perfectly sensible of 

 their discourse. One of iheir stories was 

 concerning the tapster and his wife, who re- 

 fused to follow him to the wars, as he desired 

 her : for the husband endeavoured to persuade 

 his wife, as far as I understood by the birds, 

 that he would leave his service in that inn, 

 and go to the wars in hopes of plunder. But 

 she refused to follow him, resolving to stay 

 either at Ratisbon, or go to Nuremberg. 

 There was a long and earnest contention be- 

 tween them ; and all this dialogue the birds 

 repeated. They even repeated the unseemly 

 words which were cast out between them, 

 and which ought rather to have been sup- 

 pressed and kept a secret. But the birds, 

 not knowing the difference between modest, 

 immodest, honest, and filthy words, did out 

 with them. The other story was concerning 

 the war which the emperor was then threaten- 

 ing against the Protestants ; which the birds 

 probably heard from some of the generals that 

 had conferences in the house. These things 

 did they repeat in the night after twelve 

 o'clock, when there was a deep silence. But 

 in the day-time, for the most part they were 

 silent, and seemed to do nothing but meditate 

 and revolve with themselves upon what the 

 guests conferred together as they sat at table, 

 or in their walks. I verily had never be- 

 lieved our Pliny writing so many wonderful 

 things concerning these little creatures, had I 

 not myself seen with my eyes, and heard 

 them with my ears uttering such things as I 

 have related. Neither yet can I of a sudden 

 write all, or call to remembrance every parti- 

 cular that I have heard." 



Such is the sagacity ascribed to the night- 

 ingale ; it is but to have high reputation for 

 any one quality, and the world is ready 

 enough to give us fame for others to which 

 we have very small pretensions. But there 

 is a little bird, rather celebrated for its affec- 

 tion to mankind than its singing, which, 

 however, in our climate, has the sweetest note 



of all others. The reader already perceives 

 that I mean the RED BREAST, the well known 



friend of man, that is found in every hedge, 

 arid makes it vocal. The note of other birds 

 is louder, and their inflexions more capricious, 

 but this bird's voice is soft, tender, and well 

 supported; and the more to be valued, as we 

 enjoy it the greatest part of the winter. If 

 the nightingale's song has been -compared to 

 the fiddle, the red-breast's voice has all the 

 delicacy of the flute. 



The red-breast, during the spring, haunts 

 the wood, the grove, and the garden; it re- 

 tires to the thickest and shadiest hedge-rows 

 to breed in. 1 But in winter it seems to be- 



1 The Red-breast. The statement given in rrost 

 books of natural history, that the red-breast, during 

 summer, flies from the habitation of man, which he has 

 haunted during the winter, to nestle in wild and solitary 

 places, is far from being strictly correct, I readily 

 admit that many of these birds may be found in woods 

 and forests; but I am equally certain that a greater 

 number do not go farther from their winter haunts than 

 the nearest hedge-rows. Even in the near vicinity of 

 London, in Copenhagen fields, Chelsea, Battersea fields, 

 Peckham, wherever, indeed, there is a field and a few 

 trees, I have heard red-breasts singing the whole sum- 

 mer. One has been in song all the summer, not a gun- 

 shot from my house at Lee, where this paragraph was 

 written ; and I have remarked another singing for 

 several months among some elms at Lewisham Bridge, 

 though there are houses all round, and the bustle of the 

 public road just below. The red-breast does not come, 

 indeed, usually to the cottage for crumbs during summer, 

 because then insects are plentiful ; and this may have 

 given rise to the common opinion. I once saw an in- 

 stance, however, at Compton Basset, in Wiltshire, in 

 which a red-breast made a daily visit, in summer, within 

 a cottage door, to pick up what he could find. It is 

 worthy of remark, that Graham's poetical sketch of the 

 red-breast is much more true to nature than the state- 

 ments of our professed naturalists: 



" High is his perch, but humble is his home, 

 And well conceal'd, sometimes within the sound 

 Of heartsome mill-clack, where the spacious door, 

 White-dusted, tells him plenty reigns around ; 

 Close at the root of brier-bush that o'erhangs 

 The narrow stream, with shealings bedded white, 

 He fixes his abode and lives at will. 

 Oft near some single cottage he prefers 

 To rear his little home ; there, pert and spruce, 

 He shares the refuse of the good wife's churn ; 

 Nor seldom does he neighbour the low roof 

 Where tiny elves are taught." 



Birds o/ Scotland. 



It is a constant inhabitant of the greater, part of the 

 European continent. About Barnholm, it is called 

 Tomue-Leden ; iu Norway, Peter Ronsmad ; in Get- 



