A HUNT FOR THE NIGHTINGALE. 87 



for I had that day heard the chaffinch also. But it was 

 evident I had no time to lose ; I was just on the di- 

 viding line, and any day might witness the cessation 

 of the last songster. For it seems that the nightingale 

 ceases singing the moment her brood is hatched. 

 After that event, you hear only a harsh chiding or 

 anxious note. Hence the poets, who attribute her 

 melancholy strains to sorrow for the loss of her young, 

 are entirely at fault. Virgil, portraying the grief of 

 Orpheus after the loss of Eurydice, says : 



" So Philomela, 'mid the poplar shade, 

 Bemoans her captive brood ; the cruel hind 

 Saw them un plumed, and took them ; but all night 

 Grieves she, and, sitting on a bough, runs o'er 

 Her wretched tale, and fills the woods with woe." 



But she probably does nothing of the kind. The 

 song of a bird is not a reminiscence, but an anticipa- 

 tion, and expresses happiness or joy only, except in 

 those cases where the male bird, having lost its mate, 

 sings for a few days as if to call the lost one back. 

 When the male renews his powers of song, after the 

 young brood has been destroyed, or after it has flown 

 away, it is a sign that a new brood is contemplated. 

 The song is, as it were, the magic note that calls the 

 brood forth. At least, this is the habit with other 

 song-birds, and I have no doubt the same holds good 

 with the nightingale. Destroy the nest or brood of 

 the wood-thrush, and if the season is not too far ad- 

 vanced, after a week or ten days of silence, during 

 which the parent birds by their manner, seem to be- 



