7G 
MOTACIL.L A. 
siot found in North Wales, or in any of the Englifh coun¬ 
ties north of it, except Yorkfhire, where they are met 
with in great plenty about Doncafter. It is alfo remark¬ 
able (Mr. Pennant adds) that this bird does not migrate 
fo far weft as Cornwall; a county where the feafons are 
fo mild, that myrtles flouriih in open air during the whole 
year.” They are univerfally oblerved to be birds of paf- 
fage; and thofe which are confined appear impatient and 
reftlefs in the fpring and autumn, efpecially during the 
slight, their ufual periods of migration : a proof that their 
peregrinations are occafioned by incitements very diffe¬ 
rent from the want of food, or the delire of warmth. 
This bird is peculiar to the old continent; and, though 
the miftionaries and voyagers fpeak of the nightingales 
of Canada, of Louifiana, the Antilles, &c. the latter is 
only a kind of mocking-bird; and that of Louifiana is 
the fame, fince, according to Dupratz, it is found in Mar¬ 
tinique and Guadaloupe; and it is manifeft, from Char¬ 
levoix’s account, that the one of Canada is either not a 
nightingale at all, oris of a very degenerate fort. It is 
indeed poftible that the nightingale, which vifits the 
northern parts of Europe and Alia, may have traverfed 
the narrow feas, which, at thofe high latitudes, divide 
the two continents; or it might have been fvvept acrofs 
by a violent wind, or carried by fome fhip. 
As thefe birds, at leaft the males, pafs the nights of 
fpring in finging, the ancients believed that during that 
feafon they never llept; and hence they inferred that the 
flefti had a foporific quality, and imagined that its heart 
and eyes laid under a perfon’s head would keep him 
awake. This notion fpread; and, being transferred into 
the arts, the nightingale became the emblem of vigilance. 
But the moderns, who have obferved with greater accu¬ 
racy, find that in the feafon of love the nightingales deep 
during the day, and that in winter their diurnal num¬ 
bers precede the refuming of their long. 
Nightingales hide themfelves in the thickeft bullies: 
they live upon aquatic and other infedts, fmall worms, 
&c. they alfo eat figs, berries, &c. But, as it would be 
difficult always to provideTuch food, feveral kinds of 
pafte have been contrived, which agree very well with 
them. Buffon mentions one of thefe birds which reached 
the age of feventeen years. It began to turn grey the 
feventh year; and at fifteen, its wing and tail quills were 
entirely white; but ftill it bad none of the ills of old age; 
it was ever joyous, warbled as in its earlier years, and 
careffed the hand that fed it. 
All forts of fnares fucceed with the nightingale; they 
are not (hy, though timorous. If they be let loofe in a 
place where there are other birds in cages, they fly di¬ 
rectly towards thefe; and this is one method among many 
others of catching them. They are caught by the call, 
by lime-twigs in titmice-traps, and noofes let where the- 
ground is newly ploughed, where are previoufly fcattered 
the nymphs of ants, mites, or whatever refembles thefe, 
as fmall bits of the whites of hard eggs, See. None but 
the vileft epicure would think of eating thefe charming 
fongflers; yet we are told that their fleffi is equal to that 
of the ortolan, and they are fatted in Gafcony for the 
table. Everyone mull have read of the feaft of Helioga- 
balus, on nightingales’ tongues; and of that famed dilb of 
the Roman tragedian JEfop, which was compofed of the 
tongues of every finging or talking bird : a dilh which is 
faid to have coll no lefs than 6843I. 10s. of our money. 
From the time of Homer to the prefent day, the poets 
have ever confidered the nightingale as a melancholy 
bird; and the tragic fable of Philomela ftill continues to 
be aflociated with it. JEfchylus, Sophocles, and Euri¬ 
pides, all concur in deferibing the nightingale’s ftrains 
as fraught with melancholy. One inftance from the lat¬ 
ter will fuffice: 
On thee, who build’ll thy tuneful feat 
Protefted by the leafy groves, I call, 
O nightingale, thy accents ever fweet, 
Their murmuring, melancholy, fall 
Prolong; O come, and with thy plaintive drain 
Aid me to utter my diltrel's. 
Thy woes, O Helen, let the fong exprefs, 
And thofe of Troy, now levelled with the plain 
By Grecian might. Potter. . 
Virgil, Horace, Catullus, and Ovid, follow the example 
of the Greek poets, and perpetuate this claflicai error, 
which pervades alrnolt all the deferiptions of the nightin¬ 
gale in the modern poets. Thus, it is celebrated as a 
melancholy bird, and exquifitely deferibed as Inch, by 
Milton, in the moll beautiful of all beautiful poems, the 
Penferofo: 
Sweet bird, that flnmn’ft the noife of folly, 
Moll mufical, moft melancholy, 
Thee, chantrefs, oft the woods among 
I woo to hear thy evening fong. 
The nightingale, however, melancholy as ffie has been 
reprefented, is, in. faCl, a cheerful bird; fhe is forrowful 
only by name; fhe fings by day as weli as by night, and 
is, as Martial calls her, the moft garrulous,of all our 
finging-birds. Her notes, ftrong and lonorous, wild and 
mellow, are to the higheft degree enlivening, when heard 
at higheft noon ; and only penfive and melancholy, when 
all nature is lulled to repofe, and our feelings are huflied 
to fllence ; when every found, whether of the woods, the 
diftant chimings of a cathedral, or the rolling of remote 
waters, come at intervals on the ear, and produce nearly 
the fame emotions as the notes of the nightingale herfelf. 
It is from afl'oeiation, that (he derives moft of her powers 
of difpofmg the heart to melancholy impreffions: cheer¬ 
ful and happy herfelf, (he has, aided by the gloom and 
fllence of night, power to elicit tears from all that liften 
to her warblings: like the infant, in an elegant Perfian 
poem of Sadi, The finiles and is happy, while all around 
.her is lilent and fad. The nightingale w r as the favourite 
bird of Sophocles and Taflo, and the fubjeCl of many an 
Arabic and Perfian allegory. Pliny has deferibed the 
efieCt of this bird’s exquifite note with appropriate 
warmth; and fome of our early Englifh poets have deli¬ 
neated this f’ongfter from nature, rather than from the 
deferiptions of the ancients. Chaucer calls her note 
“ merry ;” and Ifaac Walton, a writer of genuine feeling 
and claflicai fimplicity, adds another teflimony to the 
cheerful note of this bird: “ He, that at midnight, when 
the very labourers deep fecurely, fnould hear, as I have 
heard, the clear air, the fweet defcants, the natural riling 
and falling, the doubling and redoubling, of her voice, 
might well be lifted above earth, and fay. Lord! what 
mufic haft thou provided for thy faints in heaven, when 
thou afforded bad men fuch mufic upon earth!” Mr. 
Coleridge has vindicated the fprightlinefs of the nightin¬ 
gale’s tones in a poem, rich in Miltonic harmony, and in 
the fenfible imagery of nature: 
All is ftill; 
A balmy night! and, though the ftars be dim, 
Yet let us think upon the vernal fliowers 
That gladden the green earth, and we fhall find 
A pleafure in the dimnefs of the ftars. 
And hark! the nightingale begins its fong. 
‘ Moft mufical, moft melancholy ,’ bird ! 
A melancholy bird! O idle thought! 
In Nature there is nothing melancholy. 
But fome night-wandering man whole heart was pierc’d 
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, 
Or flow diftemper, or negleCled love, 
(And fo, poor wretch ! fill'd all things with himfelf. 
And made all gentle founds tell back the tale 
Of his own forrows,) he, and fuch as he. 
Fil'd nam’d thefe notes a melancholy ftrain ; 
And many a poet echoes the conceit; 
And youths and maidens moft poetical. 
Who lofe the deep’ning twilights of the fpring 
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they ftill, 
Full of meek fympathy, mull heave their fighs 
O’er 
