234 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



deeper and more mellow-toned note than a small 

 pipe, so the windpipe of the nightingale, which is 

 wider than that of the canary, sends forth a deeper 

 and more mellow-toned note. Soft-billed birds, also, 

 sing more from the lower part of the throat than the 

 hard-billed species. This, together with the greater 

 width of the tube in the nightingale and other soft- 

 billed warblers, fully accounts for their soft, round, 

 mellow notes, compared with the shrill, sharp, and 

 clear notes of the canary and other hard-billed song- 

 birds*." 



Most poets, in accordance with these remarks, have 

 represented the notes of the nightingale as plaintive 

 and sorrowful, though others have also spoken of 

 them as sprightly and cheerful. Hence, to use the 

 words of Lord Byron, " it has been much doubted 

 whether the notes of this ' lover of the rose' are sad 

 or merry f." This poet, indeed, has decided the 

 matter most correctly when he says, 

 " Though his note is somewhat sad, 

 He'll try for once a strain more glad[" 



Looking upon this as the true state of the case, 

 we are not much disposed to go into this apparently 

 idle controversy; but the representations which the 

 poets have given of the nightingale's song must 

 interest every lover of nature, and therefore we 

 shall select a few, were it only to repel a strange 

 and unwarrantable misrepresentation by a recent 

 periodical writer, who signs himself Anti-Philomel, 

 of the 



" Sweet bird, that shuns the noise of folly." 

 " In point of fact," says this reviler, " there is no- 

 thing either sad or sentimental in the song of the 

 nightingale. It is an incessant tinkling, trilling, 



* British Song-Birds. 



j- Bride of Abydos, Notes, p. 65, ed. 8vo, 



t Ibid. p. 15, line 292. 



