HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



83 



■diately after mating. Many of their actions, and 

 their low, ceaseless twittering, are a most laughable 

 caricature of a newly-married couple— say on their 

 wedding-journey. Like poor mankind, bird-kind 

 too have their petty vexations, and the little quarrels 

 of a newly-mated pair of birds are also wondrously 

 humau-like, in that the feminine voice is ever louder 

 and more rapid in its utterance, and enjoys that 

 precious privilege of all female-kind, the last word. 



We have more than once witnessed such quarrels, 

 and the literally henpecked husband has always 

 been compelled to submit to his tyrannical partner. 

 If he be lazy, woe betide him, when nest-building 

 commences, as it so soon does, after mating. His 

 gay feathers will lose their prim appearance, and 

 mayhap only the fraction of a tail be left him. Yet, 

 notwithstanding all, he will cheer his brooding mate 

 with his choicest songs ; singing, it may be, with 

 greater ardour from the thought that his wife is too 

 busy at home to bother him. 



What may all this have to do with language ? 

 Just this, that precisely in accordance with the 

 manner that things go on, whether smoothly or not, 

 are the " chirps and twitters," as they seem to us 

 simply to be ; low, musical, and deliberately uttered, 

 or if from any cause the birds are excited, then these 

 same utterances are shrill, cacophonous, and so 

 rapidly repeated, that the birds, if unseen, cannot be 

 recognized by their voices. 



But to constitute language, these chirps and 

 twitters must be shown to convey ideas, it will be 

 urged. Can one bird tell another anything ? it will 

 be asked. In conclusion, let us see if it cannot be 

 shown that birds, by their various utterances, do 

 convey ideas to other birds. 



Let us turn to that most instructive time in all 

 bird-life, and observe a pair of birds building a nest. 

 There is an instance that occurred before us in the 

 spring of 1872. A pair of Cat-birds {Galeoscoptes 

 carolinensis) were noticed carrying materials for a 

 nest to a patch of blackberry-briars hard by. To 

 test their ingenuity, the writer took a long, narrow 

 strip of muslin, too long for one bird conveniently to 

 carry, and placed it on the ground in such a position 

 as to be seen by the birds when searching for 

 material. In a few moments, one of the Cat-birds 

 spied the strip, and endeavoured to carry it off; but 

 its length and weight, however he took hold of it, 

 and he tried many times, impeded his flight, and 

 after long worrying over it, the bird flew off, not, as 

 we supposed, to seek other material, but, as it 

 proved, for assistance in securing the muslin strip 

 in question. In a few moments the bird returned 

 with its mate, and then, standing near the strip, 

 they held what we claim to be a consultation. The 

 chirping, twittering, murmuring, and occasional 

 ejaculations were all unmistakable. In a few mo- 

 ments these all ceased, and the work commenced. 

 Each took hold of the muslin strip, at about the 



same distance in each case from the ends, and, 

 starting exactly together, they flew off, bearing the 

 prize successfully away. We followed as quickly as 

 possible, and never yet in our experience heard such 

 interminable wrangling and jabbering. The poor 

 birds simply could not agree as to how to use so 

 long a piece of material; and neither being willing 

 to discard it, or agree to the other's suggestions as 

 to its use, it was finally abandoned ; but so was the 

 unfinished nest, and the birds left the neighbour- 

 hood. 



We canuot see how birds can be denied language. 

 A hundred instances such as the above occur every 

 day in the essential details ; all indicating that by 

 some means a bird communicates to its companion 

 its own thoughts ; and as we know they have a 

 large range of utterances, is it not presumable that 

 these are the media by which their thoughts are 

 expressed ? We can only judge by the human 

 standard, and, so judged, birds have a spoken 

 language. 



We have seen that these various utterances are 

 only expressed when the bird is occupied ; and their 

 songs only when the bird is quiet and giving its 

 whole attention to the act of singing. Is there not 

 here, of itself, sufficient evidence to show that birds, 

 like mankind, sing for pleasure and talk from 

 necessity ? At least, we think so. 



Chas. C. Abbott, M.D. 



Trenton, New Jersey. 



SKETCHES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND. 

 Chapter V. — Antiquities op the Bukren. 



BY G. H. KINAHAN, M.R.I.A. 



FOR the extent of area contained in the barony 

 of Burren, the number of remains and sites 

 of antiquity seem small. The country, however, 

 apparently, never could have supported a large 

 population. We know, from the annals, that they 

 lived very much on the cattle of their neighbours 

 who inhabited the champagne country to the east- 

 ward ; while the scanty herbage of their hills was 

 famous for its fattening qualities ; mention of the 

 fat cattle of the Burreu being not uncommon in the 

 different ancient records, as in an old poem (sup- 

 posed to have been/written in the ninth century, and 

 translated by the late Eugene Curry in the " Natu- 

 ral History Review," Dublin, vol. vii. p. 44), that 

 gives a list of all the wild animals in Ireland brought 

 to the Hill of Tara by Cailte Mac Ronain, as a 

 ransom to Corma Mac Art, king of Erin, for his 

 king and foster-brother, Einn Mac Cumhail, where 

 " two oxen from Burren " are mentioned. 



In places scattered about, often on conspicuous 

 heights, are some stone forts or cahers, while on 

 others are cams, or monumental piles of small 



