Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1901 — Birds Compete in Song. [ARTICLE]

Birds Compete in Song.

Nightingale competitive concerts are held every year during April in various cities in Japan. The main feature of this quaint recreation is to bring together tame nightingales of melodious voice, according to the accepted standard of connoisseurs, and to let each of these nightingales sing in turn. By this singing the value of the songsters as to their musical talent is determined. The method adopted in collecting the concert expenses is peculiar, for the amount levied on the owners of the songsters is greater as their exhibits get a higher grade. According to the Japan Times, this refined competition is more popular in Nagasaki than anywhere else in Japan, and that consequently the best songsters command an extraordinary price in that city, as much as 1,000 yen a bird. In Tokyo they can hardly fetch more than 300 yen.