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271
The Folk-lore of Plants
·
T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
258
'Once
I
was
dumb,'
then
did
the
bird
disclose,
'But
looked
upon
the
rose,
And
in
the
garden
where
the
loved
one
grows,
I
straightway
did
begin
sweet
music
to
compose.'"
Mrs.
Browning,
in
her
"Lay
of
the
Early
Rose,"
alludes
to
this
legend,
and
Moore
in
his
"Lalla
Rookh"
asks:--
"Though
rich
the
spot
With
every
flower
this
earth
has
got,
What
is
it
to
the
nightingale,
If
there
his
darling
rose
is
not?"
But
the
rose
is
not
the
only
plant
for
which
the
nightingale
is
said
to
have
a
predilection,
there
being
an
old
notion
that
its
song
is
never
heard
except
where
cowslips
are
to
be
found
in
profusion.
Experience,
however,
only
too
often
proves
the
inaccuracy
of
this
assertion.
We
may
also
quote
the
following
note
from
Yarrell's
"British
Birds"
(4th
ed.,
i.
316):--"Walcott,
in
his
'Synopsis
of
British
Birds'
(vol.
ii.
228),
says
that
the
nightingale
has
been
observed
to
be
met
with
only
where
the
cowslip
grows
kindly,
and
the
assertion
receives
a
partial
approval
from
Montagu;
but
whether
the
statement
be
true
or
false,
its
converse
certainly
cannot
be
maintained,
for
Mr.
Watson
gives
the
cowslip
(Primula
veris)
as
found
in
all
the
'provinces'
into
which
he
divides
Great
Britain,
as
far
north
as
Caithness
and
Shetland,
where
we
know
that
the
nightingale
does
not
occur."
A
correspondent
of
Notes
and
Queries
(5th
Ser.
ix.
492)
says
that
in
East
Sussex,
on
the
borders
of
Kent,
"the
cowslip
is
quite
unknown,
but
nightingales
are
as
common
as
blackberries
there."
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