BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 15 



This same nightingale was keeping a litde surprise 

 in store for me. Although he took no notice of me 

 sitting at the open window, whenever I went thirty 

 or forty yards from the gate along the narrow lane 

 that faced it, my presence troubled him and his mate 

 only too much. They would flit round my head 

 emitting the two strongly contrasted sounds with 

 which they express solicitude — the clear, thin, 

 plaintive, or wailing note, and the low, jarring sound, 

 an alternate lamenting and girding. One day when 

 I approached the nest they displayed more anxiety 

 than usual, fluttering close to me, wailing and 

 croaking more vehemently than ever, when all at 

 once the male, at the height of his excitement, 

 burst into singing. Half a dozen notes were uttered 

 rapidly with great strength, then the small com- 

 plaining cry again, and at intervals a fresh burst 

 of melody. I have remarked the same thing in other 

 singing birds, species in which the harsh grating 

 or piercing sounds that properly express violent 

 emotions of a painful kind have been nearly or 

 quite lost. In the nightingale this part of the bird's 

 language has lost its original character, and has 

 dwindled to something very small. Solicitude, 

 fear, anger, are expressed with sounds that are mere 

 lispings compared with those emitted by the bird 

 when singing. It is worthy of remark that some of 

 the most highly developed melodists — and I am now 



