36 NATURALIST'* CABINET. 



Variety of notes. 



Mr. Harrington once kept a very fine night- 

 ingak for three years, during which time he paid 

 a particular attention to its song. Its tone was 

 infinitely more mellow than that of any other 

 bird ; though at the same time, by a proper ex- 

 ertion, it could be excessively brilliant. Whea 

 this bird " sang its song round," in its whole 

 compass, he observed sixteen different begin- 

 nings and closes; at the same time that the inter- 

 mediate notes were commonly varied in their 

 succession with so much judgment, as to produce 

 a most pleasing variety. Another point of supe- 

 riority in the nightingale, is its continuance of 

 song without a pause; which Mr. Barrington 

 observed to be sometimes not less than twenty 

 seconds. Whenever respiration, however, be- 

 came necessary, it was taken with; as much judg- 

 ment as by an opera singer. 



Here it should be remarked, that nightingales 

 in general, in a wild state, do not sing above ten 

 weeks in the year; while those confined in a 

 cage continue their song for nine or ten months; 

 and a caged nightingale sings infinitely more 

 sweetly than those which we hear abroad in the 

 tpring. The latter, as the bird-fanciers term it, 

 are so rank, that they seldom sing any thing but 

 short and Ipud jerks; which consequently cannot 

 be compared to the notes of a caged bird, since 

 the instrument is thus overstrained. 



The music of the nightingale, when out o 

 4oors, and with the corresponding darkness, and 

 I 



