218 THE NIGHTINGALE. 



ferent strains, well marked by their first and last notes, the intermediate 

 notes being tastefully varied by the bird ; and he ascertained that the space 

 filled by the nightingale's voice is no less than an English mile in diameter, 

 especiaily when the air is calm : this equals the compass of the huma? 

 voice. 



44 It is surprising that so small a bird, which weighs only half an ounce, 

 should have such force in the vocal organs. Mr. Hunter has observed that 

 the muscles of the larynx, or gullet, are stronger in proportion, in this 

 species, than in any other, and also stronger in the male which sings, than 

 in the female which does not sing. 



" Aristotle, and Pliny after him, say, that the song of the nightingale 

 lasts in all its strength for fifteen days and fifteen nights uninterruptedly, 

 at the time that the trees are putting forth their leaves ; this can refer only 

 to wild nightingales, and must not be taken literally ; for these birds are 

 not silent either before or after the period fixed by Aristotle. It is true 

 they do not continue to sing with so much ardour and constancy. They 

 generally begin in the month of April, and do not completely end till the 

 month of June, about the time of the solstice ; but the time when their 

 song diminishes most, is when the young are hatched, because they are 

 then occupied in feeding them, and in the order of instincts, that which 

 tends to the preservation of the species is pre-eminent. Captive nightin- 

 gales continue to sing for nine or ten months, and their song is sustained 

 not only for a longer time, but it is more perfect and studied. Hence 

 Mr. Barington infers, that in this species, and in many others, the male 

 does not sing to amuse the female, and enliven her fatigue when sitting ; 

 which appears a very just and probable inference. Indeed, the female 

 when she sits performs her office from an instinct, or rather a passion, 

 stronger in her than even the passion of love ; she finds in it an internal 

 satisfaction of which we can form no idea, but which she appears to feel 

 sensibly, and we cannot therefore suppose that at such moments she is in 

 any want of consolation. Since then it is neither from duty nor virtue 

 that the female sits, neither is it on that account that the male sings : in- 

 deed he does not sing during the second incubation. It is love, and espe- 

 cially the first season of love, which inspires the song of the bird ; it is in 

 spring that they experience the want both to love and to sing ; it is the 

 males which have most desire, and it is they who sing the most. Ther 

 continue to sing during the greater part of the year if we preserve around 

 them a perpetual spring, which incessantly renews their ardour, without 

 affording an occasion for extinguishing it ; this happens to caged nightin- 

 gales, and even, as it has been already mentioned, to those which have 

 been taken full grown. Some have been known to begin to sing with all 

 their strength a few hours after being caught. They must, however, have 

 been insensible of their loss of liberty at first. They would starve the first 

 seven or eight days if they were not fed, and would injure their heads 

 against the top of the cage if their wings were not tied ; but at last the pas 

 ion for singing prevails, because it is produced by a still deeper passion. 



" The songs of other birds, the sounds of instruments, the tones of a 

 sweet sonorous voice, excite them much. They run, they approach, at- 

 tracted by the sweet sounds ; but duets attract them still more powerfully, 

 which would seem to prove that they are sensible to the effects of harm on 



