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garden ! surely there must be some mistake.” “ Mistake ! oh,

no ; it is screaming all day and all night ; we never have a

moment’s peace ; it’s perfectly dreadful; it’s quite unbearable.”

“I realty don’t understand; besides, all my talking birds are

shut up every night in the house, so that they may not disturb

the neighbours in the mornings.” “Oh! but there is some

dreadful thing yelling and screaming all night long, and all day

long too ; it never stops. Hark ! there it goes ; that’s it; what

a horrible row ! my husband can’t sleep a wink, and it’s dread¬

ful, simply awful.” “ That ? that a noise ? why, that’s the

song of the Nightingale .” “Oh, no; I don’t mean the Nightingale

of course, but that great thing which screams and whistles all

night long.” Over and over again, but with lessening assurance,

she declared that she didn’t mean the Nightingale, that it wasn’t

a Nightingale, but some big screeching thing; Polly couldn’t

sleep, and Betsy cried, and her husband was worn out, etc., etc.


There are few things that give my wife and myself greater

pleasure than this Nightingale. He is six years old, and has

been in song since January ; but, singularly enough, although

singing all day, he had not commenced to sing at night until

three nights previously. I had obtained a wife for him, and they

seemed bent on nesting ; our bed-room overlooks the aviary ;

and the notes of this bird (although not perfect, for it w 7 as hand-

reared), in the midst of the bricks and mortar, are to country-bred

persons like ourselves an exquisite delight. I enlarged upon

the privilege she enjoyed of sleeping (without extra charge)

within sound of the song of a Nightingale, of the heartless

cruelty it would be to disturb such innocent birds while nesting,

hinted at the absurdity of objecting to the song of a Nightingale,

the theme of numberless poets, and suggested that wdieu she told

her husband and Betsy and Polly and all the rest of them that it

was realty a Nightingale, they would one and all declare that its

notes were of the sweetest, and said that if she would bring them

round in the daj^-time they should have the pleasure of feeding

the bird out of their hands. She evidently thought that it would

not sound well if it got abroad that they had objected to the song

of a Nightingale, and beat as dignified a retreat as circumstances

would permit.


Far different is the story of the * Trentham Nightingale.

Two years ago, for the first time on record, a pair took up their

abode in a clump in the park; and the miners and pottery-hands

came in the evenings in their hundreds (I am told thousands)



* The Staffordshire seat of the Duke of Sutherland.—R. P.



