IMITATION 163 



common ; and I do not believe that one of our 

 native song-birds, reared in captivity and isolated 

 from its species, will ever sing its natural song. 

 Having, during the last nine years, paid great 

 attention to the singing of birds, I can generally 

 detect whether a loud singer, such as a thrush or 

 blackbird, heard even at a distance, is a caged or a 

 free bird. A canary, after once acquiring its song, 

 seems less liable to imitate birds not in its im- 

 mediate vicinity than is the linnet or the skylark ; 

 yet many canaries adopt strains from other birds, 

 independently of the condition of the latter. At 

 Vancouver many of the canaries had learned the 

 invariable, short, but full-toned song of a certain 

 bird abundant in all the vacant spaces in the 

 city. Sometimes I could not tell which species 

 was singing. It is to be regretted that many 

 writers, in recording the imitativeness of birds, do 

 not state whether they refer to caged or to wild 

 individuals. 



The crows, which are notoriously imitative in 

 captivity, do not apparently reproduce when wild 

 the notes of birds not of their respective species, 

 although they possess the apparatus for singing, 

 as we have seen (page 70), and although their 

 powers extend to the reproduction of sweet whistles, 



