A RESPONSIVE NIGHTINGALE.
This week was chosen by the B.B.C. to broadcast the song of a nightingale. The birds have been in wonderful song ; and in one place at any rate they have given further evidence of responsiveness to human music. This singer has been delighting the residents within the academic walls of a Cambridge college and has been stirred to special effort (as a sequence of experiments have proved) by the 'cello of a girl student. It has been my experience in past years that sounds more loud than musical also stir them to song. Certainly I have never heard them so vociferous as in the intervals of a thunderstorm. But perhaps it is the warmth or the electric air, and not the noise, that is responsible. The reason why birds and beasts from canaries to donkeys respond to particular tunes and instruments is worth perhaps more expert inquiry than it has received.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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