BIRDS. 2^3 



oiglit. It was usual then ubout midnight, when there was no 

 noise in tlie house, but all still, to hear the two nightingales 

 jangling and talking with each other, and plainly imitating men's 

 discourses. For my part I was almost astonished with wonder ; 

 for at this time, when all was quiet else, they held conference 

 together, and repeated whatever they had heard among the guests 

 hy day. Those two of them that were most notable, and mas- 

 ters of this art, were scarcely ten feet distant from one another. 

 The third hung more remote, so that I could not so well hear 

 It as I lay a-bed. But it is wonderful to tell how those two 

 provoked each other; and by answering, invited and drew- one 

 another to speak. Yet did they not confound their words, or 

 t'llk both together, but rather utter them alternately and of 

 course. Besides the daily discourse of the guests, they chaunt- 

 ed out two stories, which generally held them from midnight 

 till morning ; and that with such modulations and inflections, 

 that no man could have taken to come from such little creatures. 

 When I asked the host if they had been taught, or whether he 

 observed their talking in the night, he answered, no : the same 

 said the whole family. But L who could not sleep for nights 

 together, was perfectly sensible of their discourse. One of their 

 stories was concerning the tapster and his wife, who refused to 

 follow him to the wars, as he desired her : for the husband en- 

 deavoured to persuade his wife, as far as I understood by the 

 birds, that he would leave his service in that inn, and go to the 

 wars in hopes of plunder. But she refused to follow him, re- 

 solving to stay either at Ratisbon, or go to Nuremberg. There 

 was a long and earnest contention between them ; and all this 

 dialogue the birds repeated. They even repeated the unseemly 

 words which were cast out between them, and which ought 

 rather to have been suppressed and kept a secret. But the birds, 

 not knowing the difference between modest, immodest, honest, 

 and filthy words, did out with them. The other story was con- 

 cerning the war which the emperor was then threatening against 

 the Protestants ; which the birds probably heard from some of 

 the generals that had conferences in the house. These things 

 did they repeat in the night after twelve o'clock, when there 

 was a deep silence. But in the day-time, for the most part they 

 were silent, and seemed to do nothing but meditate and revolve 

 with themselves upon what the guests conferred together as they 

 III. X 



