THE NIGHTINGALE.
The song of the nightingale is to be heard, without intermission, for
fifteen days and nights, continuously, when the foliage is thickening,
as it bursts from the bud; a bird which deserves our admiration in no
slight degree. First of all, what a powerful voice it has in so small a
body! its note, how long, and how well sustained! And then, too, it is
the only bird the notes of which are modulated in accordance with the
strict rules of musical science. At one moment, as it sustains its
breath, it will prolong its note, and then at another, will vary it with
different inflections; then, again, it will break into distinct
chirrups, or pour forth an endless series of roulades. Then it will
warble to itself, while taking breath, or disguise its voice in an
instant; while sometimes, again, it will twitter to itself, now with a
full note, now with a grave, now again sharp, now with a broken note,
and now with a prolonged one. Sometimes, when it thinks fit, it will
break out into quavers, and will run through, in succession, alto,
tenor, and bass: in a word, in so tiny a throat is to be found all the
melody that the ingenuity of man has ever discovered through the medium
of the invention of the most exquisite flute: so, that there can be no
doubt it was an infallible presage of his future sweetness as a poet,
when one of these creatures perched and sang on the infant lips of the
poet Stesichorus.
No doubt there is a remarkable degree of art in its performances, for
every individual has a number of notes peculiar to itself; they do not,
all of them, have the same, but each, certain melodies of its own. They
vie with one another, and the spirit with which they contend is evident
to all. Often the one that is vanquished, dies in the contest,
preferring to yield its life rather than its song. The younger birds are
listening, in the mean time, and receive the lesson in song from which
they are to profit. The learner hearkens with the greatest attention,
and repeats what it has heard, and then they are silent by turns; this
is understood to be the correction of an error on the part of the
scholar, and a sort of reproof, as it were, on the part of the teacher.
Nightingales bring as high a price as slaves, and sometimes more than
used formerly to be paid for a man in a suit of armor.
I know that on one occasion six thousand sesterces ($250) was paid for a
nightingale, a white one it is true, a thing that is hardly ever to be
seen, for a present to Agrippina, the wife of the Emperor Claudius. A
nightingale has been often seen that will sing at command, and take
alternate parts with the music that accompanies it; men, too, have been
found who could imitate its note with such exactness, that it would be
impossible to tell the difference, by merely putting water in a reed
held crosswise, and then blowing into it, a languette being first
inserted, for the purpose of breaking the sound and rendering it more
shrill. But these modulations, so clever and so artistic, begin
gradually to cease at the end of the fifteen days; not that you can say,
however, that the bird is either fatigued or tired of singing; but, as
the heat increases, its voice becomes altogether changed, and possesses
no longer either modulation or variety of note. Its color, too, becomes
changed, and at last, throughout the winter, it totally disappears. The
tongue of the nightingale is not pointed at the tip, as in other birds.
It lays at the beginning of the spring, six eggs at the most.