58 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



that coldness at night lessens much the flow of the 

 nightingale's song, even if it affects the quality. Prob- 

 ably what most affects the quality is practice; hence 

 the nightingale does not reach his zenith till he has 

 been several weeks in full song. If tradition in this, 

 as in other things about the bird, is faulty, and the 

 nightingale is after all chiefly a day singer, none the 

 less the time to hear him is after dark. On stone- 

 stDl, pitch-dark nights, such as we have in May 

 nights with what a spell ! the world is a sounding- 

 board for the nightingales. 



It is very good to go quietly out of doors late on 

 a May night, when the last light is out and the 

 village sleeps, and to wait in the grave stillness for 

 that first " low piping sound more sweet than all." It 

 begins slow, intense, and wailing ; then quickens and 

 enlivens, and leads up to breathless passages, rattling, 

 clamorous, marvellous for power and execution. It is 

 the musketry of music, full of flash and brilliance. 



"Brilliant" one feels to be the exact word for the 

 nightingale; and brilliance is peculiar to the nightin- 

 gale among English singing birds; it should not be 

 said of thrush or blackbird. Nor should one call the 

 sedge bird brilliant in song, though his staying power 

 is so astonishing at night by the river, and some at 

 least of his notes so good. 



To stand on the soppy grass one tranced night near 

 moist mid-May, listening in the stillness and dark for 

 the nightingales, and then next night to look down 



