its being known, for certain, which is which. For myself, I go with the general opinion in this respect, yet it is difficult to summon up in imagination the effect that the clear, joyous notes of the thrush might have upon one, did they ring out in the silence and stillness of the night. And if this is true in regard to the thrush, does it not apply still more to the skylark?—a bird whose lovely and long-continued outpouring, uttered, as it is, in the day and all around—common, and therefore, of necessity, undervalued—may yet, as it appears to me, in spite of such a disadvantage, well challenge comparison with the song of the nightingale itself If we look to effect, at any rate, the former bird seems to have inspired poets as highly, or almost as highly, as the latter. Then we have an opinion which, perhaps, may have been that of Shakespeare himself, who was a rare lover of music, that
The nightingale, if she should sing by day
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
Now the nightingale does sing by day, and, as a matter of fact, she is then thought at least no better than the lark or thrush—in fact, she is, like these, often not noticed at all, as I have had some opportunities of observing. This, at least, shows that some of the effect produced upon some of us by this bird's song, is due to that added and exquisite poetry which night and silence gives to it. We have no other night-singing bird who is sufficiently common, and whose song is at the same time sufficiently distinguished for it to attract much attention, and there-
