48 A HISTORY OF 



not &o well hear it as I lay abed. 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. Be- 

 sides the daily discourse of the guests, they chaunted out two stories, 

 which, generally held them from midnight till morning, and that 

 with such modulations and inflections, that 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 concerning the tapster and his wife, who 

 refused to follow him to the wars, as he desired her : For the hus- 

 band 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 between them, and all this dialogue the birds re- 

 peated. They even repeated the unseemly words which were cast 

 out between them, and which ought rather to have been suppressed 

 and kept a secret. But the birds, not knowing the difference between 

 modest, immodest, honest, and filthy words, did out with them. Tho 

 other story was concerning the war which the emperor was then 

 threatening against the Protestants, which the bird 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 them- 

 selves upon what the guests conferred together as they sat at table, 

 or in their walks. I verily had never believed 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 particular that I have heard." 



Such is the sagacity ascribed to the nightingale ; 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 affection to mankind 

 than its singing, which however, in our climate, has the sweetest 

 iiote 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, and 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 com- 

 pared 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 retires to the thickest and shadiest hedge-rows to s 

 breed in. But in winter it seems to become more domestic, and 

 often to claim protection from man. Most of the soft-billed birds, the 

 nightingale, the swalloWj and the tit-mouse, leave ui in the winter. 



