278 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
were the shrubberies in Cadogan Gardens, Sloane Street, and in 
Kensington Gardens; and although Mr. Harting, in his ‘ Fere 
Nature of the London Parks,’* states that several naturalists have 
heard this bird within the last two years in the flower walk of 
Kensington Gardens, the writer, although on the watch both 
early and late, has not detected its song or seen it there since 
1872. The shrubberies are now too tidy to attract it. The 
Nightingale delights in thick undergrowth, low coppices and 
hedgerows. Formerly such localities existed in the above-named 
places, and the song of this bird was then constantly heard. 
Within a few years the Nightingale frequented the low bushes 
and thick shrubberies on the banks of the Canal in the Regent's 
Park, and is still occasionally heard there. This year it is pleasant 
to record its advent again. On Sunday, April 29th, one was 
singing close to the Gardens of the Zoological Society. Travers, 
the Keeper of the Western Aviary, drew my attention to it, and we 
listened for some time to its song, “ most musical, most melan- 
choly.” This bird, amongst poets of all ages, is designated as in the 
feminine gender, in allusion, no doubt, to its mythological origin. 
It is always referred to as “she” or “her,” although it is the 
male bird alone which sings. Spenser is one of the few poets 
who places the Nightingale in the masculine gender; thus, in the 
‘Shepherd's Calendar’ :— ; 
«The Nightingale is sovereign of song, 
Before him sits the Titmouse, silent be.” 
Skelton, poet laureate to Henry the Eighth, wrote :— 
“It were an heuenly helthe, 
It were an endlesse welthe, 
A lyfe for God himselfe, 
To here this Nyghtyngale, 
Amonge the byrdes smale, 
Warbelynge in the vale, 
Dug, dug, Lug, Lug, 
Good yere and goode lucke, 
With chuke, chuke, chuke, chuke.” 
Not every poet, however, who has written in praise of 
the Nightingale has proved himself acquainted with its song. 
Cowper, for instance, wrote a poem to the Nightingale, which he 
* «Popular Science Review,’ April, 1879. 
