Chap. XIII.] VOCAL MUSIC. 49 



common domestic cock clucks to the hen, and the hen to 

 her chickens, when a dainty morsel is found. The hen, 

 when she has laid an egg, " repeats the same note very 

 often, and concludes with the sixth above, which she 

 holds for a longer time;" 26 and thus she expresses her 

 joy. Some social birds apparently call to each other for 

 aid ; and as they flit from tree to tree, the flock is kept 

 together by chirp answering chirp. During the noctur- 

 nal migrations of geese and other water-fowl, sonorous 

 clangs from the van may be heard in the darkness over- 

 head, answered by clangs in the rear. Certain cries 

 serve as danger-signals, which, as the sportsman knows to 

 his cost, are well understood by the same species and by 

 others. The domestic cock crows, and the humming-bird 

 chirps, in triumph over a defeated rival. The true song, 

 however, of most birds and various strange cries are 

 chiefly uttered during the breeding-season, and serve as a 

 charm, or merely as a call-note, to the other sex. 



Naturalists are much divided with respect to the object 

 of the singing of birds. Few more careful observers ever 

 lived than Montagu, and he maintained that the " males 

 of song-birds and of many others do not in general search 

 for the female, but, on the contrary, their business in the 

 spring is to perch on some conspicuous spot, breathing 

 out their full and amorous notes, which, by instinct, the 

 female knows, and repairs to the spot to choose her mate." " 

 Mr. Jenner Weir informs me that this is certainly the case 

 with the nightingale. Bechstein, who kept birds during 

 his whole life, asserts that " the female canary always 

 chooses the best singer, and that in a state of nature the 

 female finch selects that male out of a hundred whose 

 notes please her most." 28 There can be no doubt that 



26 The Hon. Dames Barrington, 'Philosoph. Transact.' 1773, p. 252. 

 2 " 'Ornithological Dictionary,' 1833, p. 475. 



M ' Naturgeschichte der Stubenvogel,' 1840, s. 4. Mr. Harrison Weir 

 22 



