A TAME NIGHTINGALE [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sun,—The
article on nightingales in your issue of September 10th tempts me to tell how we have heard the nightingale sing in August.
We did not tame our nightingale, he tamed us. In mid- July a young bird, which we at first took to be a young robin, followed us about the garden so closely that often he narrowly escaped being trodden underfoot. Like a robin he was greedy after cheese, but still more for ants' eggs, pouncing clown at once whenever an ant heap chanced to be opened. One day he suddenly opened his beak wide with a hideous croak and we knew he was no robin.. In a few days he put on full
nightingale plumage. Then his song began. As we picked _fruit he sat on the wire netting over our heads and practised, phrase by phrase, his song ; always softly, con sordino, but over and over again until perfect, then on to the next phrase, He got as far as " jug jug," but never in our hearing tried the long cadence. He came boldly into the house and sat under the kitchen table while we were making jam.
We feared lest the abundance of food should check his desire to migrate, but he disappeared on August 8th after a farewell visit just inside our parlour door. Many springs ago, in a villa on the Alban Hills, a newly arrived nightingale in our garden tried over the phrases of his song in exactly the same fashion and he took more than a week's practice before he burst into full song.—I am, Sir, &c., MARY MUDIE. Dunsfold, Surrey.
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