The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

In the gardens of the Dilgusha, in Shiraz, in Persia, nightingales are said to abound, which not only
sing during the night, but whose plaintive
melody is not by day suspended in the East
as it is in our colder regions: and it is
said that several of those birds have expired while contending with musicians in the
loudness or variety of their notes. It has
indeed, been known, according to Pliny,
that in vocal trials among nightingales, the
vanquished bird terminated its song with
its life.

An intelligent Persian who repeated his
story again and again, and permitted me
to write it down from his lips, declared
that he had more than once been present
when a celebrated lutanist, Mirza Mohammed, surnamed Baltab, was playing to a
large company in a grove near Shiraz;
where he distinctly saw the nightingales
trying to vie with the musician; sometimes
warbling on the trees, sometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished
to approach the instrument whence the
melody proceeded; and at length dropping
on the ground in a kind of ecstacy from
which he assured me they were soon raised by a change in the mode of playing;
and in one of Strada's Academical Prolusions, we find a most beautiful poem which
tends to confirm the Persian report: for it
supposes a spirit of emulation so powerful in the nightingale, that having strained her
little throat vainly endeavoring to excel
the musician, she breathes out her life in
one last effort, and drops upon the instrument which had contributed to her defeat.
Sir Wm. Ouseley's Travels in Persia.