260 INSTINCTS OF BIRDS. 



confiding in the remark of Jonston,* that the 

 nightingales which visit Scotland have not the 

 same harmony as those of Italy; Dr. Darwin 

 was hastily led to conclude, that the songs of 

 birds, in general, are artificial. Having observed 

 also, that poultry readily obey their usual 

 summons to be fed; and that young ducks 

 hatched under the domestic hen soon appear to 

 understand her calls; and giving credit to the 

 mistaken idea, that wagtails and hedge warblers 

 feed the young cuckoos they bring up, long after 

 they leave the nest, whenever they hear their 

 cuckooing, which, on the authority LinnaBus,f 

 he states to be their cry of hunger, he was 

 induced to adopt the same opinion respecting 

 their calls. Now, whether the song of the 

 nightingale results from education, as Kircher 

 maintains, or whether it is wholly independent 

 of tuition, I have never had any direct means 

 of deciding, as the bird is only an accidental 

 visitor in this part of the kingdom. From un- 

 exceptionable experiments, however, made with 

 the greatest care, on several other species of 

 British singing birds, I have no hesitation in 

 affirming, that the peculiar song of each is the 

 natural consequence of an instinctive impulse 



* Pennant's British Zoology. 

 f Systema Naturae. 



