“THE NIGHTINGALE.”

Hokitika Guardian, 8 May 1924, Page 4

“THE NIGHTINGALE.”

CAPTURING ITS SONG. A WIRELESS EXPERIMENT. (By A. M. R.) “Captain Eekersley, chief engineer of the Broadcasting Company, hopes during the spring to broadcast the song of a nightingale. He proposes to make a dive into the heart of Oxfordshire with a microphone and small transmitting set. If a nightingale is hoard near a trunk telephone line its song will he transmitted to a studio in London, and thence sent broadcast, so that the whole kingdom may hear the same nightingale.” Heading the above cable item in Saturday’s “Herald” will doubtless bring hack to some “Diggers” and other Australians who have had the good fortune at some time to have heard a nightingale in English lanes or hedgerows, a memory, that perhaps is second to none in bird songs. For there is no other song so wonderful, so beautiful, so thrilling.

Spring in England is almost there. Captain Eekersley will have till about the second week in June in which to make the most of his chances to capture the glorious notes and love song of this shy, nervous little songster. For it is very rarely that the nightingale’s voice is heard alter that time. The purpose of his singing has been accomplished. Ask any retsirned “Digger" who was lucky enough to hear the nightingale once while on his short ten days’ Blighty leave what its song is like, and hu will probably tell you to listen, unseen, by the side of a beautiful canary; pretend it is midnight under a starlight sky, and the long garbling, tolling exquisite notes are coming from the depths of a bush somewhere not far away. Only many, many times more exquisite, more liquid. more trembling, rolling, and ecstatic must those thrilling canary notes be to resemble only faintly the nightingale. When romance lives around every thrdilling note lie utters. It is love that makes hint sing so—love for his sweetheart, later his little mate, and the little naked babies that later on are guarded in their little nest. Wonderful indeed is the homing instinct which year after year brings the nightingale straight across the sea in-

land to the very bush or tree in Eng-

land in which it lived the year before or had its nest. It never loses its way. And there for about eight or ten days in patience the male waits,

for he knows at the end of that time the female birds will arrive, too, from across the sea. Invariably the males arrive eight or ten days before the foi males.

From that time on till love-making has won him a little mate, the eggs, and the little fledglings hatched, the male nightingale’s song is of a beauty unsurpassed in the world and a never-to-be-forgotten memory to those who have once heard it. It i* at this time Captain Eekersley hopes to capture the bird’s song. Shy and nervous as the birds are, they build their nest quite close to the homes of men, but it is a very raie thing indeed to hear a nightingale singing, lie is easily frightened, but when-i nce he does start he seems to lie so utterly carried away bv the ;iassicii of love be feels, and so to glory and pulse under the love ol melody that bursts from his throat, that all sense of danger is lost upon him. ii is a sweet little love story; his singing attracts some little sweetheart

and. having won her. he then sings while the female sits tirelessly on the eggs, the male trills joyfully away night and day to cheer her. The little naked babies peep through their shells one dav—and then the

song ceases, not to be heard any more lliai season, unless his nest be robbed sorii alter the eggs tire laid, when lie will generally sing until another is built and the second lot of eggs laid. But it i- very rare indeed that he will sing while a second brood is being hatched. With caterpillars, tints' eggs, little worms and tiny grubs and bottles, am! oilier inserts to be touiul tor bis

hungry family, lie has no time lor singing. Strangely enough, hi- parental dignity seems to make it impossible for a note to issue from him even if be had the time—his voice ha» gone—those glorious liquid notes have become a hoarse froglike croak! But next spring lie will he back to hi- beloved English lanes and hedgerows, his -oiig as glorious, as thrilling and as beautiful as ever. Fir the sake of many thousand* who have never heard that love song, may Captain Eekersley succeed!