On the Singing of Birds. 289 



The only ideas I am in possession of, relative to the phre- 

 nological structure of the head of song birds, I can only give 

 from memory ; but from what work, I am, at the present time, 

 not able to say ; but, to the best of my recollection, the author 

 was Transatlantic. As far as I can recollect, this author 

 says, there is a great peculiarity in the construction of the ears 

 and head of song birds. There is almost a direct passage 

 from one ear to the other ; so that, if the drums of the ears 

 (membranae tympani) were perforated, water might be poured 

 in at one ear, and it would run out at the other : this is not 

 the case with man, or other animals. Now, this passage in the 

 head of song birds, occurs in a cavity which passes round the 

 head, and is formed by the two bony plates of the skull ; the 

 upper plate being supported by several small thread-like 

 pillars, which rest upon the lower plate, which is immediately 

 above the brain. 



Now, I am not aware that any other creature has been ex- 

 amined which possesses this peculiarity of structure in the 

 head ; though I should think that very quick hearing animals, 

 as the mole (Talpa europae x a), must possess something of a 

 similar construction, as this peculiarity of construction is 

 strictly conformable with the principles of acoustics, or the 

 doctrine of sounds. [Some notice of the structure of the 

 organs of hearing of the mole is in V. 298.] 



Admitting the anatomy of the head to be as above described, 

 birds sing in the full enjoyment of that propensity which nature 

 has implanted in them, heightened into joy by the peculiar 

 construction of the head for the reverberation of sound, which 

 must be attended with infinite delight to the bird itself. How 

 to answer the question, " Why do not females sing as well as 

 the males?" agreeably to this phrenological doctrine, I con- 

 fess I am at a loss, unless the head differs in its internal 

 structure ; for I cannot discover any external difference in the 

 developement of the organs of song, between males and females. 



Old Kent Road, April 1. 1836. 



[In II. 376. is a brief abstract of part of a treatise " On the 

 Organs of Voice in Birds," which Mr. Yarrell had pro- 

 duced, and which had been read at meetings of the Linnaean 

 Society. 



In I. 341 — 348. is a review of Jennings's Ornithologia, in 

 which, in p. 346, 347., the reviewer, Professor Rennie, has 

 criticised a notion that he had apprehended Mr. Jennings to 

 have expressed, to the amount that the singing birds of Ame- 

 rica are fewer, and sing with less sweetness, than the birds of 

 the Old World: see in sequel, I. 414—421.; II. 111—113. 



