We have every spring a few pairs of Nightingales in our woods. Except when a wood has been cleared of its undergrowth, they may always be found in the same places, and if the accustomed pair is missing in one it is almost sure to be found in another. The edge of a wood is the favourite place, because the bird constantly seeks its food in the open; also perhaps because the best places for the nest are often in the depth of an overgrown hedge, where the cover is thicker than inside a wood. Sitting on the sunny side of such a wood, I have often had ample opportunity of hearing and watching a pair: for though always somewhat shy, they are not frightened at a motionless figure, and will generally show themselves if you wait for them, on some prominent bough or bit of railing, or as they descend on the meadow in quest of food.
I am always surprised that writers on birds have so little to say of the beauty of the Nightingale’s form and colouring. It is of the ideal size for a bird, neither too small to be noticed readily, nor so large as the somewhat awkwardly built Blackbird or Starling. All its parts are in exquisite proportion; its length of leg gives it a peculiarly sprightly mien, and tail and neck are formed to a perfect balance. Its plumage, as seen, not in an ornithologist’s cabinet, but in the living and moving bird a little distance from you, is of three hues, all sober, but all possessing that reality of colour which is so satisfying to the eye on a sunny day. The uniform brown of the head, the wings, and the upper part of the back, is much like the brown of the Robin, a bird which in some other respects strangely resembles the Nightingale; but either it is a little brighter, or the larger surface gives it a richer tone. In both birds the brown is set off against a beautiful red; but this in the Nightingale is only distinct when it flies or jerks the tail, the upper feathers of which, as well as the longer quills, and especially the innermost ones, are of that deep but bright russet that one associates with an autumn morning. And throat and breast are white; not pure white, but of the gentle tone of a cloud where the gray begins to meet the sunshine.
In habit the Nightingale is peculiarly alert and quick, not restless in a petty way, like the fidgety Titmice or the lesser warblers, but putting a certain seriousness and intensity into all it does. Its activity is neither grotesque nor playful, but seems to arise from a kind of nervous zeal, which is also characteristic of its song. If it perches for an instant on the gorse-bush beneath the hedgerow which borders the wood, it jerks its tail up, expands its wings, and is off in another moment. If it alights on the ground, it rears up head and neck like a thrush, hops a few paces, listens, darts upon some morsel of food, and does not dally with it. As it sings, its whole body vibrates, and the soft neck feathers ripple to the quivering of the throat.
I need not attempt to describe that wonderful song, if song it is, and not rather an impassioned recitative. The poets are often sadly to seek about it; Wordsworth at least seems to have caught its spirit:—
“O Nightingale, thou surely art
A creature of a fiery heart.”
And Wordsworth, as he tells us in the next stanza, found the cooing of the stock-dove more agreeable to his pensive mind. I never yet heard a Nightingale singing dolefully, as the poets will have it sing;[43] its varied phrases are all given out con brio, and even that marvellous crescendo on a single note, which no other bird attempts, conveys to the mind of the listener the fiery intensity of the high-strung singer. It is a pity to compare the songs of birds; our best singers, Thrush, Blackbird, Blackcap, Robin, and Garden-warbler, all have a vocal beauty of their own; but it may safely be said that none approaches the Nightingale in fire and fervour of song, or in the combination of extraordinary power with variety of phrase. He seems to do what he pleases with his voice, yet never to play with it; so earnest is he in every utterance—and these come at intervals, sometimes even a long silence making the performance still more mysterious—that if I were asked how to distinguish his song from the rest, I should be inclined to tell my questioner to wait by a wood side till he is fairly startled by a bird that puts his whole ardent soul into his song. But if he will have a description, let him go to old Pliny’s tenth book, or rather to Philemon Holland’s translation of it, which is much better reading than the original; and there he will find the most enthusiastic of the many futile attempts to describe the indescribable.
The Nightingale’s voice is heard no more after mid-June; and from this time onwards the woods begin to grow silent, especially after early morning. For a while the Blackcap breaks the stillness, and his soft sweet warble is in perfect keeping with the quiet solitude. But as the heat increases, the birds begin to feel, as man does, that the shade of a thick wood is more oppressive than the bright sunshine of the meadows; and on a hot afternoon in July you may walk through the woodland and hardly catch a single note.
But on the outskirts of a wood, or in a grassy ‘ride,’ you may meet with life again. The Titmice will come crooning around you, appearing suddenly, and vanishing you hardly know how or whither; Wood-pigeons will dash out of the trees with that curious impetuosity of theirs, as if they were suddenly sent for on most pressing business. A Robin will perch on a branch hard by, and startle you with that pathetic soliloquy which calls up instantly to your memory the damp mist and decaying leaves of last November. The Green Woodpecker may be there, laughing at you from an elm, or possibly (as I have sometimes seen him) feeding on the ground, and looking like a gorgeous bird of the tropics.
Other birds of the Woodpecker kind are not common in our woods. The Greater Spotted Woodpecker has only once fairly shown himself to me; the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, which I have heard country folk call the French Heckle, seldom catches the eye,[44] though to judge by the number of stuffed specimens which adorn the parlours of inns and farm-houses, it can by no means be very rare. For this name ‘heckle,’ and all its curious local variants, I may refer the reader to Professor Skeat’s most valuable etymological contribution to Newton’s Edition of Yarrell’s Birds;[45] but why, one may ask, should it be called the French Heckle? A very old game-keeper, who described to me by this name a bird which was certainly the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, also used the expression English Heckle for the Wryneck—a bird (he said) much plainer than the French Heckle, and apt to hiss at you if you try to take its eggs. I imagine that French is here contrasted with English to indicate superior brightness and dapperness of plumage.