St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1889-04-06
Nightingales.

Nightingales are accounted shy by ma
turalists and SO described in all treatises
upon them, bnt on the contrary, when the
nightingale is happy he is trustful, bold,
gay bird, and he sings throughout the day
time; he will sing at night also, and in
4rch when the weather is warm the lutte
-. his throat Is seldom quiet. But at the
risk of quarreling with all the naturalists,
affirm, after many years of abundant and
intimate acquaintance with nightingales,
that they sing most in the daytime. AS |
write these lines it is an hour after noon
by the sun dial, on the sixth of June, and
a dozen nightingales are singing their
proudest under the elderberry blossoms
and the bay leaves and the walls of ivy
and the amethyst colored flowers of the
rhododendron and the odorous heights of
the far reaching honeysuckle. There is
one who for many years has made his
nest in the same place, thicket, growing
against the house, of arhutus and laurel,
with ivy and jessamine climbing and leap
ing all over the boughs. This njghtin-
gale sings very nearly all day, and often
at night also. There is great difference
in the powers of different nightingales,
caused by the difference in their ages, but
in all of them the daylight song is more
brilliant than that of the night ii e. and
this I distinctly affirm, all statements OF
conventional acceptance and tradition not
outstanding and the song of the night
ingale is joyous, not sad-it is an epithala-
MUM hosanna, a song of passion and
ecstacy and triumph. When one remem-
bers that 1000 years ago Romans were
killing these divine songsters for the ban
quet, and that all through the intervening
centuries war has been waged upon them,
and yet we still hear the liquid loneliness
of their melodies pour in torrents through
the sunlight and the moonlight, one is
filed with marvel at the power of resist
ance in nature aud at the soulless, bestial
egotism of man.
By many writer's, both of prose and
poetry, the personal plaiI.sess of the night.
ingale is spoken of in contrast to the splen-
doris of his song, but this idea is also in
accurate. He is handsome, slender bird.
elegantly shaped, with beautiful large
eyes, and of a bright plumage, rather
brown than gray. " hen all ornithologi-
cal books tell US that he is of the tribe of
the Humicoloe, and in the great genus of
the oscines, and of a family which IS di
vided into Luscinia philomela and Lucinie
major, it seems as clumsily unreasonable
as most scientific classifcs tons do; he is a
nightingale, Sappho's "dear angel of the
spring." the idol of every poet since the
days of Sappho, and he sang in the dewy
freshness of an infant world.
The nightingale loves garden which is
somewhat wild he wants messy and rich
ground where the fallen leaves lie year
after year. Left alone he will fill your
days and nights with music throughout
April, May and June. Weather affects
him little have heard one sing raptur
ously all through the violence of thunder
storm which frightened men by the terror
of its peals and the fury of its sheet and
forked lightning he did not care-he sang
on, sheltered by the branches of white
Powered acacia tree. No song of any bird
is SO expressive Of rapture as the nightin-
gale. Beethoven has written it down in
his pastoral symphony, but no instrument
made by man can render the ecstasy and
melody of the birds throat Cosmopolitan
fo, MnreL -s-e7rsz