ON THE SINGING OF BIRDS. 
Some of the nightingale fanciers also prefer a 
Surry bird to those of Middlesex.” 
These differences in the song of birds of the 
same species cannot perhaps be compared to 
any thing more apposite, than the varieties of 
provincial dialects. 
The nightingale seems to have been fixed 
upon, almost universally, as the most capital of 
singing birds, which superiority it certainly may 
boldly challenge: one reason, however, of this 
bird’s being more attended to than others is, 
that it sings in the night. 
Pipe rattle, Bell pipe, Scroty, Skeg, Skeg, Skeg, Swat swat 
swaty, Whitlow whitlow whitlow, from some distant affinity to. 
such words. 
* Mr. Henshaw informs us, that nightingales in Denmark are 
not heard till May, and that their notes are not so sweet or various 
as with us. Dr. Birch’s History of the Royal Society, Vol. III. 
p- 189. Whilst Mr. Fletcher (who was minister from Queen: 
Elizabeth to Russia) says, that the nightingales in that part of 
the world have a finer note than ours. See Fletcher's Life, in 
the Biographia Britannica. 
I never could believe what is commonly asserted, that the 
Czar Peter was at a considerable expence to introduce singing 
birds near Petersburgh; because it appears, by the Fauna Suect- 
ca, that they have in those latitudes most of the same birds with 
those of England. 
+ The woodlark and reed sparrow sing likewise in the night; 
and from hence, in the neighborhood of Shrewsbury, the latter 
hath obtained the name of the willow-nightingale. Nightin- 
gales, however, and these two other birds, sing also in the day, 
but are not then distinguished in the general concert. ° 
365, 
