XHB PdrTINTJftiaiB jrOWJBlK VU' OUK' — xiia 



i,'reat surgeon, John Huntee, who left nothing 

 mmvestigated within the widest range then 

 nown to his professional pursuits, accounted 

 or the extraordinary power of the nigthingale's 

 iiong by the size and strength of the muscles of 

 ,Be throat, which he found to be much more ex- 

 eiiaively developed than in any other singing 

 )iid ; and thia unusual development of the or- 

 ' s of the throat may account for the tradi- 

 g of talking nightingales. Pleny asserts, for 

 nee, that Druous and Bbitannious, the 

 of Claudius, bad nightingales that could 

 k both Greek and Latin; ind that 

 oe birds might have been taught by 

 ,eniou8 Greek trainers to utter a few 

 rases with tolerable distinctness is ex- 

 cdangly probable, as such traditions have 

 Jways some foundation ; but when the enthusi- 

 astic old naturaUst of the Trajancan era goes on 

 to tell us that the birds in question carried on 

 f! abates "in right good rhetorical form," we are 

 compelled to doubt the assertions or our ven- 

 erable authority, whose superstitions on this 

 (subject one is nevertheless inchned to treat with 

 the greatest leniency, partly on account of his 

 evident enthusiasm and entii-e beUef m what ho 

 titatos, but more especially on account of his de- 

 hghttul and accurate description of the nightin- 

 gale's song, as he, no doubt, had often heard it 

 himself in the w^oods about his beautiful villa at 

 Como — the Como which, then as now, was es- 

 eemed one of the laii-est spots of northern 

 Italy. Among oiher labiilous anecdotes re- 

 d,ted by the good old Eoman naturahst is 

 that concerning tlie great singer, Stesiohokus, 

 who was said to be indebted for the high- 

 eat beauties of his art to the fact that a nigiii- 

 ingale liad perched upon his lips wneu a 

 child as he slept, and that he had unconsciously 

 drunk in the melodioue strains then poured 

 fonh, by the recohection of which he afterward 

 became famous. As regards talking ni^htin- 



I' ale's, Puny's assertion is not unsupported; for 

 w find Gessner, the modern Theocritus, the 

 Qodern master of IdylUc poetry, and at the 

 ijame time an experienced naturaUst, describing 

 two caged nightingales belonging: to an mkeep- 

 er at Katisbon, who, in tne sdeuco of the night, 

 talked with each other, repeating phrases which 

 they had heard during the day. Even Buffon, 

 whJe ridiculing the creduUty of Puny, and mis- 

 ti'aeting to some extent the statement of Gess- 

 NEK, Says that when reared irom the nest they 

 may be taught to talk. Tne prices paid in Konie 

 for caged mghting;iles appears to have been 

 really labulous — AoRrppiNA, the wife ot the Em- 

 peror DLiVunius, havmg paid, as Plikt tells us, 

 an enormous sum for a wnite nightingale, while 

 an ordinary bu'd of extremely pcil'ect song would 

 eeh i-or as much as a roLiubi and well-trained 

 slave. — Orice a Wsek. 



