446 A NIGHTINGALE DIET. [CHAP. xiv. 



intermissu cantus." (Fifteen continual nights and days 

 are different to a whole life of unrest.) ^Elian, in his 

 gossip on the nature of animals *, makes the wakeful- 

 ness of the Nightingale communicable to those who are 

 guilty of eating its flesh, and so leads us to infer that 

 inability to rest is an infectious disorder. " Aiyova-i 31 



xa.1 ra xgeoc, avr^? sl<; oiy^vjrvioin XlWTfAltV." (And they 



say that the flesh of it tends to sleeplessness.) But he 

 seems to think that such epicures are punished no worse 

 than they deserve. " Iiov*j^&< pn oi/v ol TCHU,VTY>S T^offiq 

 ^aTy^o^, xa atpaOits &*{." (Wretched are those 

 that feast on such a viand, and untaught, dreadfully 

 so!) 



E.-A. I am told that the Nightingale is an ill-fla- 

 voured bird, and that the taste, once known, is not 

 easily forgotten. The last kind of pleasure we should 

 now think of deriving from Nightingales is that of 

 eating them. The idea never enters our thoughts, or, 

 if it do, is at once rejected ; the notion is as obsolete and 

 extravagant as the Twelve Caesars. Heliogabalus, and a 

 few other worthies of his set, are almost the only 

 epicures of the kind whom I remember. 



C. They had some excuse ; they believed that a dish 

 of Nightingales, with their tongues and brains, was a 

 sovereign remedy against that terrible disease, epilepsy, 

 with which several of their family were afflicted. 



E.-A. We must not boast our entire rejection of these 

 absurd and superstitious medicaments ; fried mice are 

 still eaten in many parts of England, as an antidote to 

 "fits; " snails as a cure for consumption; viper-broth is 

 much out of fashion, but you know how highly it was 



* Vol. i. p. 43. 



