54 THE NIGHTINGALE. 



greatest favorite of the lovers of the beauty of na- 

 ture. Coleridge wrote thus of this bird : 



" The merry nightingale, 

 That crov/ds and hurries and precipitates, 

 With fast, thick warble, his delicious notes, 

 As if he were fearful that an April night 

 Would be too short for him to utter forth 

 His love-chant, and disburden his full soul 

 Of all its music." 



He will sometimes dwell for several seconds on a 

 strain composed of only two or three melancholy 

 tones, beginning in an under-voice, and swelling it 

 gradually by a most superb crescendo to the highest 

 point of strength, then ending it by a dying cadence. 

 His very striking musical talent, surpassing all other 

 singing-birds, has acquired for him the name of the 

 king of songsters. 



There are variations in the voices of Nightingales, 

 just the same as in a great many classes of song-birds. 

 These cannot be easily accounted for ; it may be that 

 the teaching of the inferior-singing Nightingales has 

 been defective ; in other cases, where the Nightingale 

 is reared in forests where various song-birds abound, 

 he has been excited by rivalry or jealousy to perfect 

 his own song to the highest degree : and these pecu- 

 liarities may be transmitted from generation to gener_ 

 ation. The same conditions of rivalry do not exist 

 in all the different parts of the world which the 

 Nightingale inhabits, therefore there is the difference 

 in the voices of birds of the same species which grow 

 up under different circumstances. This rivalry of 



