I heard the notes of the Mocking-Bird the first time in his native wilds, during a railroad journey by night, through the Pine Barrens of North Carolina, in the month of June. The journey was very tiresome and unpleasant, nothing being seen, when looking out upon the landscape, but a gloomy stretch of level forest, consisting of tall pines, thinly scattered, without any branches, except at their tops. The dusky forms of these trees, pictured against the half-luminous sky, seemed like so many giant spectres watching the progress of our journey, and increased the loneliness of the hour. Before daylight, when the sky was faintly crimsoned around the place where the sun was to come forth, the train made a pause of half an hour, at one of the stations, and the passengers alighted. While I was looking at the dreary prospect of desert, tired of my journey and longing for day, suddenly the notes of the Mocking-Bird came to my ear, and changed all my gloomy feelings into delight.
It is seldom I have felt so vividly the power of one little incident to change the tone of one's feelings and the humor of the occasion. As a few drops of oil, cast upon the surface of the waters, will quiet the troubled waves, so did the glad voice of this merry bird suddenly dispel all those sombre feelings which had been fostered by dismal scenes and a lonely journey. Nature never seemed so lovely as when the rising dawn, with its tearful beams and purple radiance, was greeted by this warbling salutation, as from some messenger of light, who came to announce that Morning was soon to step forth from her throne, and extend over all things her smiles and her beneficence.
Of the other American birds that sing in the night I can say nothing from my own observation. The most important of these is the New York Thrush, (Turdus aquaticus,) which is said to resemble the River Nightingale of Europe. This bird, which is common in the Western States, is said to sing melodiously night and day. Wilson remarks of this species, "They are eminently distinguished by the loudness, sweetness, and expressive vivacity of their notes, which begin very high and clear, falling with an almost imperceptible gradation, till they are scarcely articulated. At these times the musician is perched on the middle branches of a tree, over a brook or river-bank, pouring out his charming melody, that may be distinctly heard for nearly half a mile. The voice of this little bird appeared to me so exquisitely sweet and expressive, that I was never tired listening to it." This description is exactly applicable to the song of the Veery, supposed to be silent by Wilson, who could not have fallen into such an error, except by having confined his researches chiefly to the Middle and Southern States.
The Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Loxia rosea) is said to be an excellent songster, passing the greater part of the night in singing, and continuing vocal in confinement. This bird is common in the Western States, but until lately has seldom been seen in New England. I learn, however, from Mr. Fowler, that "the Rose-breasted Grosbeak is found in Essex County, and, though formerly seldom seen, is becoming every year more common. Like the Wood Thrush and Scarlet Tanager, it is retiring in its habits, and is usually found in the most sheltered part of the wood, where, perched about midway on a tree, in fancied concealment, it warbles its soft, clear, and melodious notes." He thinks this bird is not heard so frequently by night as by day, though it often sings in the light of the moon.
In connection with this theme, we cannot help feeling a sense of regret, almost like melancholy, when we reflect that the true Nightingale and the Skylark, the classical birds of European literature, are strangers to our fields and woods. In May and June there is no want of sylvan minstrels to wake the morn and to sing the vespers of a sweet summer evening. A flood of song wakes us at the earliest daylight; and the shy and solitary Veery, after the Vesper-Bird has concluded his evening hymn, pours his few pensive notes into the very bosom of twilight, and makes the hour sacred by his melody. But after twilight is sped, and the moon rises to shed her meek radiance over the sleeping earth, the Nightingale is not here to greet her rising, and to turn her melancholy beams into the cheerfulness of daylight. And when the Queen Moon is on her throne,
"Clustered around by all her starry Fays,"
the Whippoorwill alone brings her the tribute of his monotonous song, and soothes the dull ear of Night with sounds which, however delightful, are not of heaven. We have become so familiar with the Lark and the Nightingale, by the perusal of the romance of rural life, that "neither breath of Morn, when she ascends" without the charm of this her earliest harbinger, "nor silent Night" without her "solemn bird," seems holy, as when we contemplate them in the works of pastoral song. Poetry has hallowed to our minds the pleasing objects of the Old World; those of the New have to be cherished in song yet many more years, before they will be equally sacred to our imaginations.
By some of our writers the Mocking-Bird is put forward as equal in song to the Nightingale. This assumption might be worthy of consideration, if the American bird were not a mimic. But his mocking habits almost annihilate his value as a songster,—as the effect of a good concert would be spoiled, if the players were constantly introducing, in the midst of their serious performances, snatches of ridiculous tunes and uncouth sounds. I have never heard the Nightingale; but if I may judge from descriptions of its song, and from the notes of those Canaries which are said to give us perfect imitations of it, we have no bird in America that equals this classical songster. The following description, by Pliny, which is said to be superior to any other, may afford us some idea of the extent of its powers:—"The Nightingale, that for fifteen days and nights, hid in the thickest shades, continues her note without intermission, deserves our attention and wonder. How surprising that so great a voice can reside in so small a body! Such perseverance in so minute an animal! With what musical propriety are the sounds it produces modulated! The note at one time drawn out with a long breath, now stealing off into a different cadence, now interrupted by a break, then changing into a new note by an unexpected transition, now seeming to renew the same strain, then deceiving expectation. She sometimes seems to murmur within herself; full, deep, sharp, swift, drawling, trembling; now at the top, the middle, and the bottom of the scale. In short, in that little bill seems to reside all the melody which man has vainly labored to bring from a variety of musical instruments. Some even seem to be possessed of a different note from the rest, and contend with each other with great ardor. The bird, overcome, is then seen to discontinue its song only with its life."
The cause of the nocturnal singing of birds that do not go abroad during the night and are strictly diurnal in all their other habits has never been satisfactorily explained. It is natural that the Whippoorwill, which is a nocturnal bird, should sing during his hours of wakefulness and activity. There is also no difficulty in explaining why Ducks and Geese, and some other social birds, should utter their loud alarm-notes, when they meet with any midnight disturbance. These birds usually have a sentinel who keeps awake; and if he give an alarm, the others reply to it. The crowing of the Cock bears more analogy to the song of a bird, for it does not seem to be an alarm-note. This domestic bird may be considered, therefore, a nocturnal songster, if his crowing can be called a song; though it is remarkable that we seldom hear it during evening twilight. The Cock sings his matins, but not his vespers; he crows at the earliest dawn of day, and at midnight upon the rising of the moon, and whenever he is awakened by artificial light. Many singing-birds are accustomed to prolong their notes after sunset to a late hour, and become silent only to commence again at the earliest daybreak. But the habit of singing in the night is peculiar to a small number of birds, and the cause of it forms a curious subject of inquiry.
By what means are they enabled to sustain such constant watchfulness, singing and providing subsistence for their offspring during the day, and still continuing wakeful and musical while it is night? Why do they take pleasure in singing, when no one will come in answer to their call? Have they their worship, like religious beings, and are their midnight lays but the outpouring of the fervency of their spirits? Do they rejoice, like the clouds, in the presence of the moon, hailing her beams as a pleasant relief from the darkness that has surrounded them? Or in the silence of night, are their songs but responses to the sounds of the trees, when they bow their heads and shake their rustling leaves in the wind? When they listen to the streamlet, that makes audible melody only in the hush of night, do they not answer to it from their leafy perch? And when the moth flies hummingly through the recesses of the wood, and the beetle sounds his horn, what are their notes but cheerful responses to these sounds, that break sweetly upon the quiet of their slumbers?