After that tempest of motion and confused noises the silence of the forest seemed very profound; but before I had been resting many moments it was broken by a low strain of exquisite bird-melody, wonderfully pure and expressive, unlike any musical sound I had ever heard before.

It seemed to issue from a thick cluster of broad leaves of a creeper only a few yards from where I sat.

With my eyes fixed on this green hiding-place I waited with suspended breath for its repetition, wondering whether any civilized being had ever listened to such a strain before.

Surely not, I thought, else the fame of so divine a melody would long ago have been noised abroad.

I thought of the rialejo, the celebrated organbird or flute-bird, and of the various ways in which hearers are affected by it.