A HUNT FOR THE NIGHTINGALE 105 



scene. A^Hiile sitting here, I saw and heard for the 

 first time the black-capped warbler. I recognized 

 the note at once by its brightness and strength, and 

 a faint suggestion in it of the nightingale's. But 

 it was disappointing: I had expected a nearer 

 approach to its great rival. The bird was very shy, 

 but did finally show herself fairly several times, as 

 she did also near Selborne, where I heard the song 

 oft repeated and prolonged. It is a ringing, ani- 

 mated strain, but as a whole seemed to me crude, 

 not smoothly and finely modulated. I could name 

 several of our own birds that surpass it in pure 

 music. Like ite congeners, the garden warbler and 

 the w^hitethroat, it sings with great emphasis and 

 strength, but its song is silvern, not golden. "Lit- 

 tle birds with big voices," one says to himself after 

 having heard most of the British songsters. My 

 path led me an adventurous course through the 

 copses and bottoms and open commons, in the long 

 twilight. At one point I came upon three young 

 men standing together and watching a dog that was 

 working a near field, — one of them probably the 

 squire's son, and the other two habited like la1)or- 

 ers. In a little thicket near by there was a bril- 

 liant chorus of bird voices, the robin, the song- 

 thrush, and the blackbird, all vying with each 

 other. To my inquiry, put to test the reliability 

 of the young countrymen's ears, they replied that 

 \)ne of the birds I heard was the nightingale, and, 

 after a moment's attention, singled out the robin 

 as the bird in question. This incident so impressed 



