336 HABITS OP BIRDS* 



I was so afflicted with the stone, that I could sleep 

 but very little all night. It was usual, then, about 

 midnight, when there was no noise in the house, but 

 all still, to hear the two nightingales jangling and 

 talking with each other, and plainly imitating men's 

 discourses. For my part I was almost astonished with 

 wonder ; for at this time, when all was quiet, they held 

 conference together, arid repeated whatever they had 

 heard among the guests by day. Those two of them 

 that were most notable, and masters of this art, were 

 scarce ten feet distant from one another; 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 they did 

 not confound their words, or talk both together, but 

 rather uttered them alternately, and in course. Besides 

 the daily discourse of the guests, they chaunted out 

 two stories, which generally held them from mid- 

 night till morning ; and that with such modulations 

 and inflexions, as no man could have taken to 

 come from such 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 their stories was concern- 

 ing the tapster and his wife, who refused to follow 

 him to the wars, as he desired her ; for the husband 

 endeavoured to persuade his wife, as far as I under- 

 stood 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 between 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- 



