The if the nightingale ever sings in actual darkness, 



Coming an( j though the bird is most eager inst before 

 of Dusk . . 



' and at dawn, at moonlit or starlit dusk, or at 



full moon, it may be heard at any hour of the 



day. I have heard the song and watched the 



singer at full noon, and that not in deep woods 



but in a copse by the wayside. Strange that 



both name and legend survive in lands where 



the nightingale j s now unseen. There is no 



question but that it was once plentiful, or at 



any rate often seen, in the Western Highlands ; 



though now, it is said, not a bird of its tribe 



has crossed the Solway since the Union ! It 



is still spoken of in Argyll and elsewhere, and 



not confusedly with any other woodlander. 



In no country has it a lovelier name than the 



Gaelic Ros-an-Ceol, the Rose of Music. I 



have heard it spoken of as the smiol or smiolach, 



the eosag, and the spideag, though this latter 



name, perhaps the commonest, is misleading, 



as it is applied to one or two other songsters. 



In Iona, Colonsay, Tiree, and other isles, I 



have heard the robin alluded to as the spideag. 



I remember the drift, but cannot recall the 



text of a Gaelic poem where the nightingale 



(for neither in literary nor legendary language 



is any other bird indicated by ' Ros-an-Ceol ') 



is called the Sister of Sorrow, with an allusion 



to a singular legend, which in some variant or 



192 



