444 
BIRD-LIFE. 
the Crow and Book accompanying in their deepest bass ; 
Black, Green and Pied Woodpeckers drum away in 
different tones, or laugh a cheery echo in concert; Gos¬ 
hawk, Buzzard, and Hobby Hawk, join in with their wild 
shrill cries; Jay and Shrike are the alto singers ; the Nut¬ 
hatch’s call is like a single flute note; while the cooing 
of the Wood Quest forms an accompaniment to the whole. 
Not a single note ought to be wanting in this woodland 
concert; they must all be there; there is not one that 
mars, or one that is superfluous. 
In the leafy wood the chorus is somewhat richer, and 
that is owing to the lovely song with which we are 
greeted by the Queen of Singers,—our Nightingale; and 
is, perhaps, still more striking than the concert in the 
pine forest. I need not dilate upon the subject of the 
song of the Nightingale, for everyone who has heard it 
takes it so much to heart that a verbal description 
cannot express its exquisite beauty. “ The scent of the 
rose makes the soul sick, and the song of the Nightingale 
saddens the heart; but the rosy lip heals where the 
scent of the rose has wounded, and loving words atone 
for the sadness of the Nightingale’s song,” says an ancient 
Arabian poet, and with him more than a hundred others, 
who have sought to render the song of the Nightingale 
into poetry. 
The song of birds rejoices, comforts, and raises the 
spirits of men of all places and at all times, even in 
countries where the fervid heat of the sun almost puts a 
stop to all singing; and also in winter, when some few 
songsters remain with us: above all, the bonny, cheery 
little Wren, who every now and again shakes the snow¬ 
flakes from its brown jacket, and breaks out clear with its 
song in the winter air, as though challenging the rest of 
