206 June — Talk of the Birds. 



mollesse ; sons files sans art mais enfle's avec ame ; sons en- 

 chanteurs et penetrants,' &c. 



Then follows a very sagacious observation on the 

 artistic utility of those intervals of silence which the 

 nightingale employs so well, and which answer, in his 

 singing, to the spaces of smooth wall in architecture, to 

 the spaces of blank paper in an etching. 



After the month of June the nightingale sings no 

 more, but cries and croaks — a lamentable change for the 

 worse ; and more than that, a loss of all that we care 

 for in the creature. After that the bird is forgotten by 

 those whom he once enchanted, and dwells in perfect 

 obscurity under the shadows of the deep woods that 

 were filled by his marvellous melody. Happier, how- 

 ever, than men who have been famous and are famous 

 no longer, he lives on in a prosaic way, without re- 

 gretting the wonderful nights when his voice was 

 supreme beneath the moon, and all things that had 

 ears must listen. 



There is a popular superstition in the Val Ste. 

 V^ronique, and in the country for some miles round, 

 that every bird repeats some phrase of its own in dis- 

 tinct French words, which we should all hear and under- 

 stand if we were only clever enough. It is believed 

 also that certain wise and elderly persons in the villages 

 do really understand the language of the birds, and they 

 seem to be disposed to profit by the popular illusion, which 

 they are at no pains to dispel by disclaiming the knowl- 

 edge imputed to them. Very probably this superstition 

 may have had its origin in mere tales of infancy. Some 



