attest this, and the latter mentions, "luscinias Græco atqué Latino sermone dociles" belonging to the young Cæsars.* We must confess that all the attempts to speak made by singing birds heard by us, have been imperfect; for though as in the case of the celebrated talking canary, you might with a little aid from the imagination make out "Pretty Queen" and other words, still the speech, like that of the witch in "Thalaba," was song, and the sound could hardly be termed more than an articulate whistle :how different from the pronunciation of those anthropoglotts, the parrots, so well exemplified in Campbell's pathetic tale; they speak in earnest : "The captain spoke in Spanish speech, In Spanish speech the bird replied." Like other biped performers, nightingales vary much in their powers of song. They have among them their Rubinis, Marios, Tamburinis, and Lablaches, and also their Mopers, that sing at intervals only, without connexion, and with long pauses-some minutes between each strain. It is amusing to see when a man mounts his hobby and happy is he who has one in his stable— how far it will carry him, aye, and merrily too. Thus Bechstein prints no less than twenty-four lines of words—some of them rare sesquipedalities-as expressive of the nightingale's song. "Twenty-four different strains or couplets," says he, "may be reckoned in the song of a fine nightingale, without including its delicate variations. This song is so articulate, so speaking, that it may be very well written. The following is a trial which I have made on that of a nightingale in my neighbourhood which passes for a very capital singer," and off the good Bechstein goes at score: “ Tiou, tiou, tiou, tiou,”f &c. &c. &c. &c.` but we must introduce the reader to one or two of the words representing the strains : "Zozozozozozozozozozozozo, zirrhading. Hezezezezezezezezezezezezezezezeze couar ho dze hoi. Higaigaigaigaigaigaigai guiagaigaigai couior dzio dzio pi." The British bird-fanciers have, also, a vocabulary of their own to express the same sounds. The Honourable Daines Barrington, who kept a very fine nightingale for three years,, attending particularly to its song, remarks that the tone is more mellow than that of any other bird, though at the same time, by a proper exertion of its musical * Nat. Hist. x. 42. † Aristophanes, in his "Birds," has the rame syllables.-Bekker's Edition, line 237. its powers, it can be excessively brilliant. When the bird sang song round, Mr. Barrington observed sixteen different beginnings and closes, at the same time that the intermediate notes were commonly varied in their succession with such judgment as to produce a most pleasing variety. He also remarked that the bird would sometimes continue without a pause not less than twenty seconds; and that whenever respiration became necessary, it was taken with as much judgment as by an opera singer. He also observed that his nightingale began softly, like the ancient orators, reserving its breath to swell certain notes, which by this means had a most astonishing effect, eluding all verbal description. He took down indeed certain passages, which may be reduced to our musical intervals; but though, he remarks, one may thus form an idea of some of the notes used, yet it is impossible to give their comparative durations in point of musical time, upon which the whole effect must depend; and, indeed, he once procured a very capital flute-player to execute the notes which Kircher has engraved in his Musurgia as being used by the nightingale, when, from not being able to settle their respective lengths, it was hardly possible to observe any traces of the nightingale's song. He adds, that he thinks he may venture to say that a nightingale may be very clearly distinguished at more than half a mile, if the evening be calm, and he suspects that it would be heard further than a man. The following is Mr. Barrington's table of the comparative merit of singing birds, making twenty the point of pèrfection: And here we conclude our imperfect sketch of the feathered songsters who enliven us with their wood notes wild. In mute July, all is, comparatively speaking, hushed; and the concert of birds may be said to be closed, till the returning year again brightens our fields,- "Fields where the spring delays, And fearlessly meets the ardour "Islands so freshly fair, That never hath bird come nigh them; But from his course through air, Hath been won downward by them." THE CUCKOO. "Don Adriano de Armado.-Holla! approach." (Enter all for the song.) "This side is Hiems, winter. This Ver, the spring: the one maintain'd by the owl, The other by the cuckoo. LOVE'S LABOUR LOST. AND a sweet rural song it iss—a little piquante withal, as those who are old enough to have heard Mrs. Jordan's arch intonation of the word of fear in "As you Like it," whither it was transplanted for Rosalind's sake, will admit; albeit, Shakspere thought proper to quiz himself by making it the compilation of the most exquisite Don's "two learned men," irreverently termed by Biron "the pedant" and "the hedge-priest." At the risk, however, of being classed with those worthies, we must begin at the beginning. It has been doubted whether the cuckoo is the Shacaph or Sacaph of Holy Writ. (Lev. xi. 16.) The Septuagint has not the Greek name for the cuckoo (xoxxv). The Tigurine or Zurich version translates the word by Cuculus;* but the Vulgate renders it Larum,t and the term employed by the seventy would seem to sanction the latter word. * Cuckoo. † Gull, or Sea-Mew. Barker's Bible (1615), generally known as the "Breeches Bible" (Gen. iii. 7), gives the sixteenth verse of Leviticus thus: "The ostrich also, and the night-crow, and the seamew, and the hauke after his kinde :"-but with the marginal note "or cuckowe" referring to "seamew." Scheuchzer, in his Physica Sacra (1732), figures the cuckoo in his plate illustrative of the verse in question (Tab. 224), and "cuckoo" is the word in the edition now read in our churches. This bird is not, it is true, mentioned by Hasselquist among those which he saw in the Holy Land, though he noticed the nightingale amid the willows of Jordan, and the olive trees of Judea; but neither did he see the cuckoo in Egypt, whence Professor Temminck received it; and it is so widely spread, that there is no reason for supposing that it is excluded from Syria. It is well known in the Morea and the Grecian Archipelago, whence it departs for Africa with the turtle-dove, and is, in consequence, called turtle-leader. The turtle-dove is named in Scripture again and again. The beautiful passage in the Song of Solomon will occur to every one "11. For lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. "12. 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. "13. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away!" And Hasselquist saw the turtle (Columba Turtur) in the Holy Land. Mr. Strickland noticed the cuckoo at Smyrna, and Mr. Dickson and Mr. Ross sent specimens of it from Erzeroum to the Zoological Society of London. It is spread over a great part of Asia, and has been found in Japan and Java. The disputed word, it will be observed, stands between the night-crow or night-hawk, and the hawk, the owl being antecedent to the night-hawk in this catalogue of unclean birds. Now it was one of the old legends that the cuckoo, at a certain period, was turned into a hawk; and the evidence generally appears to be in favour of the version at present in use. shall find that If we turn from sacred to profane story, we the cuckoo bore no common part in ancient fable. The king and father of Gods and men himself did not disdain to take the form of the bird when he was anxious to introduce himself to Juno. It is well known how compendiously Saturn provided for his family; and the Future Queen of Heaven seems to have very nearly shared the fate of her brothers and sisters. She was, however, restored to the world by means of a potion given to her ogre of a papa, in order to make him give up the indigestible stone which his betterhalf had induced him to swallow instead of Jupiter. Poor blooming Juno was separated from the rest of the heavenly conclave, and wandering to Mount Thornax in Argolis, there remained in solitude. Jupiter, who was on the watch, raised the most pelting of pitiless storms, and, in the likeness of a cuckoo, flew, all trembling and shivering from the bitter weather, to Juno's lap for shelter. The kind-hearted goddess, pitying the bird's condition, covered him with her robe. In an instant the bird was gone, and the god resumed his shape. The sudden transformation, startling as it was, did not throw the prudent young lady off her guard, and they were afterwards married in due form. But there is always somebody ready to give an ill-natured turn to a story accordingly the gossip ran, that when the drenched bird flew to her for refuge, she shook it out of her peplum; but when the god stood confessed, she accepted him. However this may have been, never was such a wedding as they had. Gods, man and womankind, beasts, and all creation attended at the solemnization of the nuptials, with one exception. Chelone plumply refused to come, and treated the whole affair with ridicule and contempt. Poor young lady-the world was in its infancy then, or she would have known better than to contemn the powerful, and would have escaped from figuring as a terrible example to posterity. Mercury just looked in, waved his caduceus over her, and down sank the shapely maiden, "As tall and as straight as the popular Tree," into a tortoise. This was not pleasant, but worse remained behind; for she was condemned to perpetual silence, and, in her new form, became the symbol of that unfeminine accomplishment. If anybody should be hardy enough to doubt all this, we would merely observe, that the mountain, after Jove's transformation, received the name of Coccyx or Coccygia, being no longer known as Thornax; and that the Argives especially worshipped the goddess, whose statue, seated on a throne, held a sceptre, upon the top of which a cuckoo was seated. This elevation does not seem to have been lost sight of by the cuckoo, who began to think himself a very great bird; and in his pride of place, challenged the nightingale one fine April evening, to a trial of song. The difficulty was to find a good judge; but at last it was sagely remarked by an owl, that as the contention resolved itself into a question of sounds, the creature with the longest ears would best become the bench upon the occasion, and the animal appointed to keep down the growth of thistles took his seat accordingly. The cuckoo began and went on "cuckoo," "cuckoo," for half-an-hour, during which the judge was observed |