The Life of Animals | Nightingale | The distribution is more southerly than the very closely related Thrush Nightingale Luscinia luscinia. At least in the Rhineland (Germany), the breeding habitat of nightingales agrees with a number of geographical parameters The nightingale is slightly larger than the European Robin, at 15-16.5 cm (5.9-6.5 in) length. Nightingales are named so Because They frequently sing at night as well as During the day.
Only unpaired males sing regularly at night, and nocturnal song is Likely to serve attracting a mate. Nightingales sing even more loudly in urban or near-urban environments, in order to Overcome the background noise. The most characteristic feature of the song is a loud Whistling crescendo, absent from the song of Thrush Nightingale.
Homer evokes the Nightingale in the Odyssey, suggesting the myth of Philomela and Procne (one of Whom, Depending on the myth's version, is turned into a nightingale). T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" also evokes the Nightingale's song (and the myth of Philomela and Procne). Because of the violence associated with the myth, the nightingale's song was long interpreted as a Lament.
The Nightingale has also been used as a symbol of Their poets or poetry. Poets chose the nightingale as a symbol Because of its creative and seemingly spontaneous song. Aristophanes' Birds and Callimachus Evoke Both the bird's song as a form of poetry. Virgil compares a traits of mourning Orpheus to the "Lament of the nightingale". In "L'Allegro" Milton characterizes Shakespeare as a nightingale warbling "his native woodnotes wilde" (line 136), and Andrew Marvell in his "On Paradise Lost" subsequently Milton's Paradise Lost described in similar terms: