178 The Naturalist in Siluria. 



all alike silent so far as concerned the singing of birds — 

 not a stave of song heard in any of them ; only occasional 

 call-notes, or signals of alarm. How different all now, 

 deep in the middle of June! This day (the 14th), 

 driving out, and through wooded dells that border the 

 Forest of Dean, though not in it, I had the pleasure of 

 listening to a concert of bird-music, with so many voices 

 taking part in it that to give the names of the singers 

 would make a list large as ever sang on opera stage, 

 choristers included. 



Therefore, only one will I particularize — one well 

 worthy of the distinction, the prima donna, not of the 

 theatre, but of the grove. Had I ever doubted before 

 that the nightingale sings by day, on this day my doubts 

 would have been removed. At meridian hour, as before 

 and after, with the sun shining brightly in a diaphanous 

 sky, I heard its song, unmistakable as unmatched by 

 anything else in the way of bird-music ; and if there be 

 any one sceptical of its singing by day, let him just now 

 repair to the dells around the Forest of Dean, on the 

 eastern or Gloucestershire side, and I promise him a 

 change of faith. 



AN OVERPRAISED BIRD. 



" The male blackcap is inferior only to the nightingale 

 in the quality of his song." 



So asserts Mr. Yarrell, and the assertion has been 

 repeated by all, or nearly all, ornithological writers since 

 his time, till it is now generally received as axiomatic. 



