148 EVOLUTION OF BIRD-SONG 



cester, a dunnock had chosen the following unusual 

 strain for his song : 



Of the chaffinch, Barrington wrote that those of 

 Essex are the more esteemed by London bird-catchers. 

 In Italy, as we learn from M. Montbeillard, the 

 linnets of Abruzzo and of the March of Ancona are 

 preferred. On this bird, see p. 127, ante. 



What seemed an interesting example of pro- 

 gressive variation in the song of a blackbird occurred 

 directly under my notice. In 1888 a pair of black- 

 birds reared their brood in a nest only a few feet 

 distant from the window of the dining-room at my 

 residence ; and the young ones must have heard, for 

 an hour or two every day, the notes of a piano, and 

 sometimes those of other instruments, played in the 

 room. Early in 1889 a blackbird in the garden (the 

 only male, and a bird born in the previous year) sang 

 little more than the following notes, which he would 

 repeat dozens of times at short intervals : 



The first note was strongly accentuated, and it was 



