ingale excepted; and he characterises its music as having such a wild sweetness that it always brought to his mind the song of Amiens in "As You Like it." With all this it is, in confinement, most affectionate to its mistress or master. A hedge or white-thorn bush generally conceals the nest, which is framed of bents and dried herbage, lined with hair and root fibres it is most frequently placed near the ground-that is, not more than two or three feet above it; but we have seen one in the garden attached to a house where we have spent many pleasant days, suspended in a festoon of ivy which had shot out from the wall, and clung to a neighbouring young tree some seven feet from the ground.* The pale greenish-white eggs are speckled or mottled with ash and light-brown, and mostly have a few darkbrown spots and streaks. The arrival of the blackcap takes place in general about April, and it returns southward in September. A later stay might prevent it from falling a victim to the spit; for it is one of those unfortunate birds that is doomed under the names of Becafico and Macchetta, "ogni qualvolta sieno grassi, ed in istato da far buona figura sulla mensa," as the Prince of Canino remarks.† The very name of the bird calls up the remembrance of such a host of eulogists that an expressive silence would perhaps be the best tribute to the powers of the nightingale; and tame, indeed, is that Saxon appellation to its Greek name, which would seem to imply that it is the very soul of song. It has been the theme for poetry in all ages, from the earliest lyre to the exquisitely-tuned harp that has immortalised the "Bower of roses by Bendemeer's streams.' Milton, all ear, has introduced it in his finest scenes, and it sings the nuptial song of our first parents in one of his most beautiful passages. Nor has the eloquence of prose been less warm in its praise. Only turn to the elegant fervour with which Pliny dwells on its miraculous power and execution; or to the honest, pious, English admiration of Izaak Walton,§ not to advert to a crowd of others, and what more can be said? We shall, in all humility, confine ourselves to a simple narrative, condensing as much of the history of the bird as our space will admit. The nightingale (Luscinia Philomela-Motacilla Luscinia, Linn.) arrives in England somewhere about the middle of April. The males, as in the case of the blackcap, come several days before the females; they are very easily caught, and the lynx-eyed, quickeared bird-catchers are immediately on the watch, so that they * In Theodore Hook's garden at Fulham. Eheu! † "Specchio Comparativo." 66 § Complete Angler," chap. 1. #Nat. Hist., x. 29. may secure them before the arrival of their mates; for it is a sad truth that if a male nightingale be taken after his song has won for him a partner, he hardly ever survives in a cage; he dies broken-hearted. Plentiful as this warbler is in some localities, it is never found in others. Nightingales are numerous in the neighbourhood of London, and a Surrey bird is considered by connoisseurs to possess a first-rate quality of voice. Sussex, Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, and the eastern part of Devonshire enjoy it, but Cornwall knows it not. Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and a great part of Yorkshire possess it, but no record of its arrival in Lancashire exists, though it has been heard as high up as Carlisle. The Welshman, it is said, never hears it in the principality, though a poetical licence has made it vocal there ;* and yet we have heard it, and never sweeter, in the Valley of Nightingales, near Bristol. There is also a Welsh name for it-Eos or Eaws.t Neither Scotland nor Ireland are known to possess it. Patriotic attempts have been in vain made to introduce it into Wales and Scotland, but we never heard of any effort to naturalise it in Ireland; and, indeed, the countrymen of MOORE may well spare it, while they listen to the thrilling strains of their own impassioned bard. Russia, Siberia, Sweden, Spain, Provence and Italy, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Smyrna, and the Grecian Archipelago, are made musical by it; but neither the Channel islands, nor Brittany, are visited by the bird, though France generally owns it, for what says the old quatrain? "Le Rossignol, des oyseaux l'outrepasse De chants divers, qui luy accroist la grace." The general site of the nightingale's nest is on the ground; but we have found it in the fork of a low and young tree some three feet from the earth; and a very loosely formed nest it is, made of the dead leaves of the oak and hornbeam, with a few bents and bits of rushes, lined at the bottom with root-fibres-so loosely formed, indeed, that few have succeeded in taking up a nightingale's nest whole, without first binding it round with string or thread. Four or five olive-brown eggs are here deposited, and in this rude cradle the most brilliant of song-birds is nursed. But, besides its natural vocal powers, the nightingale, it appears, can be taught to speak. Moschus, Statius, and Pliny, * Dyer, Grongar Hill. Since the publication of the first edition, information that the nightingale has been heard in the county of Glamorgan, by experienced ears, has been kindly forwarded to the author. attest this, and the latter mentions, "luscinias Græco atque 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 stablehow 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,”t &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 same syllables.-Bekker's Edition, line 237. powers, it can be excessively brilliant. When the bird sang its 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 perfection: 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. Ver begin." LOVE'S LABOUR LOST. AND a sweet rural song it is—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. |