40 The Nightingale. 



therefore, try all their arts to take him in this early stage of his 

 visit to us. Should he be taken later, when he is mated, and, as 

 we see him in our picture, with all the wealth of his little life 

 around him, he cannot sing long. How should he — in a narrow 

 cage and dingy street of London or some other great town — 

 perhaps with his eyes put out — for his cruel captor fancies he 

 sings best if blind? He may sing, perhaps, for a while, think- 

 ing that he can wake himself out of this dreadful dream- of 

 captivity, darkness, and solitude. But it is .no dream; the ter- 

 rible reality at length comes upon him, and before the summer 

 is over he dies of a broken heart. 



It is a curious fact that the nightingale confines itself, without 

 apparent reason, to certain countries and to certain parts of 

 England. For instance, though it visits Sweden, and even the 

 temperate parts of Russia, it is not met with in Scotland, North 

 Wales, nor Ireland, neither is it found in any of our northern 

 counties excepting Yorkshire, and there only in the neighbour- 

 hood of Doncaster. Neither is it known in the south-western 

 counties, as Cornwall and Devonshire. It is supposed to mi- 

 grate during the winter into Egypt and Syria. It has been 

 seen amongst the willows of Jordan and the olive trees of Judea, 

 but we have not, to our knowledge, any direct mention of it in 

 the Scriptures, though Solomon no doubt had it in his thoughts, 

 in his sweet description of the spring — " Lo, the winter is past, 

 the rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ; 

 the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the 

 turtle is heard in our land." A recent traveller in Syria tells 

 me that she heard nightingales singing at four o'clock one 

 morning in April of last year in the lofty regions of the Lebanon. 



