to receive the sick and wounded of a large army. The condition of the large barrack-hospital at Scutari was deplorable. A royal commission of inquiry was appointed, a patriotic fund opened, and money flowed in fast. To Miss Nightingale this proved the trumpet-call of duty. She wrote to Sidney Herbert, secretary at war, and offered her services. Her letter crossed with one from him inviting her to proceed to the Crimea. She set out on the 24th October with a staff of thirty-seven nurses, partly volunteers, partly professionals trained in hospitals. They reached Scutari on the 4th of November, in time to receive the Balaklava wounded. A day or two later these were joined by 600 from Inkerman. The story of Miss Nightingale’s labours at Scutari is one of the brightest pages in English annals. She gave herself, body and soul, to the work. She would stand for twenty hours at a stretch to see the wounded accommodated. She regularly took her place in the operation-room, to hearten the sufferers by her presence and sympathy, and at night she would make her solitary round of the wards, lamp in hand, stopping here and there to speak a kindly word to some patient. Soon she had 10,000 men under her charge, and the general superintendence of all the hospitals on the Bosporus. Gradually the effects of the measures adopted were seen in a lowered death-rate. In February 1855 it was as high as 42%, before many months it had sunk to 2. For a time Miss Nightingale was herself prostrated with fever, but she refused to leave her post, and remained at Scutari till Turkey was evacuated by the British in July 1856. The enthusiasm aroused in England by Miss Nightingale’s labours was indescribable. A man-of-war was ordered to bring her home, and London prepared to give her a triumphant reception; but she returned quietly in a French ship, crossed to England, and escaped to her country home before the news of her return could leak out. The experiences of those terrible months permanently affected Miss Nightingale’s health, but the quiet life she afterwards led was full of usefulness. With the £50,000 raised in recognition of her services she founded the Nightingale Home for training nurses at St Thomas’s and King’s College Hospitals. She also turned her attention to the question of army sanitary reform and army hospitals, and to the work of the Army Medical College at Chatham. In 1858 she published her Notes on Nursing, which gave an enormous stimulus to the study of this subject in England. According to Miss Nightingale nursing ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the selection and administration of diet—all at the least expense of vital force to the patient.
Miss Nightingale followed with interest all the later improvements in sanitation, and was frequently consulted about hospital plans both at home and abroad. With the help of the County Council Technical Instruction Committee she organized in 1892 a health crusade in Buckinghamshire. Teachers were sent round among the cottagers to give practical advice on such points as ventilation, drainage, disinfectants, cleanliness, &c., a plan which, if widely carried out, would bring the most valuable knowledge to every home in England. She is understood to have drawn up a confidential report for the government on the working of the Army Medical Corps in the Crimea, and to have been officially consulted during the American Civil War and the Franco-German War. In 1907 she received the Order of Merit from King Edward. VII. She died in London on the 13th of August 1910. She is the subject of a beautiful poem by Longfellow, “Santa Filomena,” and the popular estimate of her character and mission was summed up in a, particularly felicitous anagram, Flit on, cheering angel.
NIGHTINGALE (O. Eng. Nihtegale, literally “singer of the night”), the bird celebrated beyond all others by European writers for the admirable vocal powers which, during some weeks after its return from its winter-quarters in the south, it exercises at all hours of the day and night. The song itself is indescribable, though several attempts, from the time of Aristophanes to the present, have been made to express in syllables the sound of its many notes. Poets have descanted on the bird (which they nearly always make of the feminine gender) leaning its breast against a thorn and pouring forth its melody in anguish. But the cock alone sings, and there is no reason to suppose that the cause and intent of his song differ in any respect from those of other birds’ songs (see Song). In great contrast to the nightingale’s pre-eminent voice is the inconspicuous coloration of its plumage, which is alike in both sexes, and is of a reddish-brown above and dull greyish-white beneath, the breast being rather darker, and the rufous tail showing the only bright tint.
The range of the European nightingale, Daulias luscinia, is peculiar. In Great Britain it is abundant in suitable localities to the south-east of a line stretching from the valley of the Exe, in Devonshire, to York, but it does not visit Ireland, its occurrence in Wales is doubtful or intermittent, and it is extremely improbable that it has ever reached Scotland. On the continent of Europe it does not occur north of a line stretching irregularly from Copenhagen to the northern Urals, and it is absent in Brittany; over south Europe otherwise it is abundant. It reaches Persia, and is a winter visitor to Arabia, Nubia, Abyssinia, Algeria and as far south as the Gold Coast. The larger eastern D. philomela, sometimes called the thrush-nightingale or Sprosser of German bird-catchers, is russet-brown in both sexes, and is a native of eastern Europe. D. hafizi of Persia, a true nightingale, is probably the Perso-Arabic bulbul of poets.
The nightingale reaches its English home about the middle of April,[1] the males (as is usual among migratory birds) arriving some days before the females. On the cocks being joined by their partners, the work for which the long and hazardous journey of both has been undertaken is speedily begun, and before long the nest is completed. This is of a rather uncommon kind, being placed on or near the ground, the outworks consisting chiefly of a great number of dead leaves ingeniously applied together so that the plane of each is mostly vertical. In the midst of the mass is wrought a deep cup-like hollow, neatly lined with fibrous roots, but the whole is so loosely constructed, and depends for lateral support so much on the stems of the plants, among which it is generally built, that a very slight touch disturbs its beautiful arrangement. Herein from four to six eggs of a deep olive colour are duly laid, and the young hatched. The nestling plumage of the nightingale differs much from that of the adult, the feathers above being tipped with a buff spot, just as in the young of the redbreast, hedge-sparrow and redstart, thereby showing the natural affinity of all these forms. Towards the end of summer the nightingale disappears to its African winter haunts.
The name nightingale has been vaguely applied to several other birds. The so-called “Virginian nightingale” is a species of grosbeak (q.v.); the “Pekin nightingale” or “Japanese nightingale” is a small babbler (Liothrix luteus) inhabiting the Himalayas and China, not Japan at all.
The nightingale holds a place in classical mythology. Procne and Philomela were the daughters of Pandion, king of Attica, who in return for warlike aid rendered him by Tereus, king of Daulis in Thrace, gave him the first-named in marriage. Tereus, however, being enamoured of her sister, feigned that his wife was dead, and induced Philomela to take her place. On her discovering the truth he cut out her tongue to hinder her from revealing his deceit; but she depicted her sad story on a robe which she sent to Procne; and the two sisters then contrived a horrible revenge for the infidelity of Tereus, by killing and serving to him at table his son Itys. Thereupon the gods interposed, changing Tereus into a hoopoe, Procne into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale, while Itys was restored to life as a pheasant, and Pandion (who had died of grief at his daughters’ dishonour) as a bird of prey (see Osprey). The fable has several variants. Ovid’s version may be seen in the 6th book of his Metamorphoses (lines 412-676). (A. N.)
NIGHTSHADE, a general term for the genus of plants known
to botanists as Solanum. The species to which the name of
nightshade is commonly given in England is Solanum Dulcamara
which is also called bittersweet or woody nightshade (see fig. 1).
It is a common plant in damp hedgebanks and thickets, scrambling
over underwood and hedges. It has slender slightly woody
stems, with alternate lanceolate leaves more or less heart-shaped
and auriculate at the base. The flowers are arranged in drooping
clusters and resemble those of the potato in shape, although
- ↑ Poets and novelists are apt to command at will the song of this bird, irrespective of season. If the appearance of truth is to be regarded, it is dangerous to introduce a nightingale as singing in England before the 15th of April or after the 15th of June. The “early nightingale” of newspaper paragraphs is generally a thrush.
