78 Nightingales in Song-time 



times to the brink of harshness, especially when it 

 over-rides the soft piping of the linnet or the willow- 

 wren's delicate chime. Nor do the sunniest hours 

 of daylight appear to wring such a transport of 

 responsive passion from the nightingale's heart as 

 some warm but dusky night of May, when all earth's 

 essences breathe forth on an air from the west. 

 The pauses, which by day were interruptions, now 

 serve as a foil or background of silence, against 

 which the bursts of throbbing music succeed each 

 other with intenser effect. Beside the compass and 

 the passion of this song, the music of the thrush 

 and skylark seems limited and thin. Deep notes 

 succeed to high in the nightingale's song with such 

 a contrast of unexpectedness that by day, when 

 many birds are singing, they seem to the unexperi- 

 enced listener to proceed from different throats. 

 We may listen to a nightingale through an hour of 

 the night, and be seldom conscious of its repeating 

 any phrase a second time. It will utter the same long, 

 piercing note twelve, fourteen, even sixteen times 

 in that poignant crescendo which is one of the rarest 

 and most impressive features of bird music ; then, 

 with a quick, bubbling run, it will cease for a mo- 

 ment, only to be urged into some new and different 

 strain by the call of its hidden rivals. For the 

 crowning beauty of the song of the nightingale by 

 night is the way in which bird answers bird under 

 the cloud or stars, from near or far away. Each 

 nightingale mounts guard at nesting-time over the 

 space of ground which he claims peculiarly for his 

 own ; and where two or three of the birds are settled 



