286 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



\L^v/j,vOo<s *) ; but Cinesias and Aldrovand think 

 " tuneful" a better rendering, inasmuch, says Aldro- 

 vand, as " the whisper of the nightingale ought to be 

 considered most melodious and delightful, not like 

 the voice of dragons, which is justly termed hissing, 

 but like the soothing sound of a breeze, softly blowing 

 and sweetly murmuring among leaves V This writer 

 may perhaps have taken the hint of his sentiments 

 from Scaliger, who (as nearly as we can render his 

 description) represents the *' birdlet gurgling canti- 

 cles, and babbling from its breast on the murmuring 

 bankj." Martial also calls it " a garrulous bird ," 

 and Strozius talks of its *' chattering song||." 



Amongst the earliest notices of the nightingale we 

 have met with, is one in the Odyssey ^f. 



As when the months are clad in flowery green, 



Sad Philomel in bowery shades unseen 



****** 



Now doom'd a wakeful bird to wail the beauteous boy, 



So in nocturnal solitude forlorn, 



A sad variety of woes I mourn. POPE. 



Euripides alludes to the great variety of the song of 

 this bird when he makes Hecuba exhort Polixena to 

 vary her voice like the nightingale (^? T' 'Arjfiovos 

 tfTo/m**). Hesiod had the same notion when he 

 applies to the nightingale the epithet of " various- 

 throated" (voiKi\o&Gipa j-f), and Oppian, who calls it 

 " various-voiced" (aioho(pwvri JJ). 



But by far the greater number of the poetical 

 authorities, both ancient and modern, agree, as we 



* In Avibus. f Aldrovand, Ornitholoegia, ii. 340. 



J Hinc gutturillo Luscinilla cantillans 



Hinc murmurante ripa garriens sinu. 

 Flet Philomela nefas incesti Tereos, et quse 



Muta puella fuit, garrula fertur avis. 



|| Integrat Garrula vicinis carmen Philomela sub umbris. 

 Erot. Lib. i. 



H T. 520. ** Hecuba, act. 2. 



ft '%?<* xat'Hpigai, 201. Jj Halieut. i. 728. 



