croak, as I have called it, of the nightingale, it would be difficult to imagine the high, clear notes of the thrush having been developed, whilst it would account for the low key in which its own are generally pitched. What I mean is—for I am not versed in musical terminology—that, in the nightingale's song, there are not those high, clear, ringing notes which we hear in that of the thrush, blackcap, skylark, and many other birds, just as in these we may listen in vain for those richer and more liquid tones which charm us so in the nightingale. Beautiful as these tones are, they do not, any more than those of other birds, include every excellence, and that particular one which they lack, being common to so many of our songsters, has come to be something which one loves and listens for, whenever bird sings upon bough. Partly because of this, perhaps, and partly because of the very pre-eminence of the nightingale as a singer, I have sometimes missed these franker, woodland-wilder strains whilst listening to its song, in a way in which I have never missed its own more dulcet notes from the song of lark or thrush. To say that Pindar is not also Sappho is no blame to Pindar, but the short continuance and frequent pauses in the song of the nightingale is, I think, a real fault, and from the blame of it this prima donna frequently escapes, when other sweet, but not so all-belauded, singers are taken thereupon to task. The poor blackbird, for instance, whose ditty is most "lovely-sweet," has been rated in these terms; yet, as a rule, in my experience, it sings continuously, for a longer time than does the nightingale, whose sometimes almost constant cessations, just when one's whole soul cries
