The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-06-27
THE NIGHTINGALE.
His Habits Described and the Poets
Justified.

late years, monstrous as it may appear,
the nightingale has become a favorite
| pet, At the Crystal Palace show, held
in mid-February, there was special
class for it. Philomel was put in a
cage, judged for points, ticketed with
price, and ranged with robins, bull
tinches, skylarks, linnets and other
victims of the same depraved taste. 1t
was sorry spectacle. The little brown
bird excited with the chirruping and
warbling going on around, pecked furi-
ously at the wire or made a poor at
tempt to sing. Yet even amid that
babel of home and foreign birds no one
could help remarking the richness and
beauty that distinguished his tones
from the rest. We have little faith in
the effect of any exhortation directed
to those capable of the enormity of i'm
prlsoning migrant, and taking pleas
ure in the descant of a Gagged nightin-
gale; but the bleakness of the Crystal
Palace in February emphasized the
ings.
He arrives here in April, and is in
full song during May, the most ex-
quisite of English months. Listening
to him the other day at a favorite
haunt, could not get out of my mind
the Crystal Palace show, with its grab
bling bird dealers and bargain hunters,
its old-maidish connosseurs and cruel
! Nv n Y;cl,a t,n Wiz
by an elongated pond, on which the
young water lily leaves already are
floating, and early breeding moor hens
were swimming with their broods-
fluffy, dusky, animated balls of down.
From one edge a sloping park stretch
es away, set with elm and chestnut
trees tenderly green with the first
foliage. The grass, also young and
green, is brushed with white daisies.
Along the brink are snowy crabapple
trees in blossom, and great hawthorns
just breaking into bloom, white bud
and green leaf blending into a delicate
gray. Over the sward the swallows
are chasing themselves at their own
sweet will''; cuckoos, with something
of a hawks carriage, but lacking that
birds bold and vigorous flight, fly from
shouting his bell-like cry to her. All
the while, so high as to nearly invisi-
BILE, three or four larks from as many
different points, are showering their
fresh and rejoicing song. To sit on a
fallen tree and look over the water with
/ it's lilies, to the park with it's daisies,
and at the same time to hear those
glad and passionate notes, is to drink
of 1;e1,
1t is not the landscape, however,
which the nightingale affects. On the
, hither side of the pond is a plantation
: of dark-looking views, and behind
: these kind of wilderness or shubbery,
2 so thick and moist that only here and
there are few open spots, some azure
+ with blue bells, others a white glitter
of anemones while the less conspicu-
$ Gus violet blooms round the stems of
2 trees and scarcely raises it's stalk above
the witherings of last year. To the
t dark recesses of this underground, rich
r in the caterpillars on which he feeds,
$ the nightingale comes every year All
day long, as well as all night long, his
! voice sounds from the low bushes. A
, perfect clamor of bird music is rising
t all round. The thrush from some top
brake whistle clear and loud, the chiff-
chaff grinds out his dissyllabic song,
t the chaff1nch his brief stanza, the rob-
: in his tender fiuting, hundred others
: each his separate lay, but the nightin-
t gale is the most distinguished of all
n Among the birds it is probable that
: the cuckoo is the least passionate. His
t food is not plentiful, and his soul is di-
| nd h,,n II
sings brief tune INDUCES in no pro-
longed courtship, has no care for his
progeny and altogether reduces his
progenitive duties to their lowest
terms. The nightingale is at the other
extreme If you listen to him at night
and carefully abstain from reading
: into his notes those human emotions
: with which poets have endowed them
: the arresting characteristics of Phil
= omel song, is it's throbbing passion.
!. The very appearance of the bird
: alert, eager, fearless-as from dim re-
treat he pours out his melody, is sug-
u gestive Of desire And as often hap.
u pens, the maddest lover becomes the
! most devoted parent The nightingale
makes a careless nest on the ground; II
q may easily be mistaken for heap OF
I willow leaves and rubbish; but no birc
: is more solicitous of the welfare of its
n young. Indeed, all it's habits point tc
1 a nature Of rare constancy The cuckoo
d wanders from grove to grove, and from
d love to love, mating with each but fol
t a moment; the nightingale SO regular.
: ly returns to the same station that his
f appearance beyond certain we'll mark.
t ed boundaries is chronicled as ar
}, event. Indeed, there are many who
t are incredulous when the assertion Is
: made that this bird has even beer
: heard north of the Humber. Nature
S does not work on such rigid cast-iror
: lines and of many authenticated cases
e of the nightingale appearing farfrom it
}. usual habitat I will mention two. One
: is on the authority Of Lady Margare
: Cameron of Lochiel, whose memoran.
n dunn is dated Achnacary, and says: "a
II nightingale was heard for three weeks
and also seen during the month o.
June, 1889. Thermometer 80 degrees II
;, the shade in May. Very hot all May
o June and July, but cold and wet in the
!, south and east of England" The sec
ond is from the Vale of Nottingham
in Northumberland. In May, 1893, /
:, having been reported in a Newcastle
y paper that a bird, supposed to be {