186 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



rain of hard jewels — but it has three characteristics 

 which crown it. First, there is the perfect phrasing, 

 the mastery of workmanship, the sheer lyrical power ; 

 secondly, there is the marvellous variety of pitch 

 and tone, and, thirdly, the passion of the music, its 

 fieriness and plangent strength. The daringly high pre- 

 lude — whew, whew, whew — repeated sometimes a dozen 

 times, peals out, and there is silence ; then a wire 

 twanged, as though an invisible hand, delicate as 

 Oberon's, struck his stringed instrument with tremendous 

 force, until the leaves of the tree seem to vibrate with 

 the sound, and silence again ; a rich, mellow, rapid 

 warble, and again silence ; a liquid, bubbling note 

 followed by a clear, bright whistle, wind and stringed 

 instruments snatched up in turn. 



The first nightingale I heard at Boar's Hill was in 

 full view on the low branch of an elm in a thick copse 

 bordered by water-meadows, nor did my rude presence 

 so close to him at all disturb him. But I had heard 

 better singers, and as evening drew on, and the sun put 

 its head through its golden garland of elm-leaves, the 

 bird fell silent and sought his invisible mate, who all 

 along had answered his fierce wooing with little stray 

 exclamations. She fled his burning love, and among 

 the fluttered leaves of the elm, before the chorus of 

 the song, and now the bower for his winged dance, he 

 played out his throbbing notes in action, in a chase of 

 wild dives, circles and dashes, a full, tawny and silver- 

 white in the level rays of the sun. Then the moon 

 usurped the sky, a more spiritual sun, and two other 

 nightingales struck into music, a more spiritual music, 

 which continued until past midnight. One of these 

 songs, apart from all the magic of association, was of 

 a beauty and purity excelling those of any nightingale 

 I remember to have heard. His melody was not sung 

 for me, nor even for his listening mate, lulled upon 

 her eggs in her oak-leaf cottage, for it seemed the 

 enraptured voice of all nature, her " alleluia sweet and 

 clear " to the Author of her being. 



But we are in Hampshire, not Oxfordshire. 



Memory tells me that magpies and jays filled my 



