THE ARU ISLANDS. 377 



birds are allied. The voices of birds need however no more 

 necessarily be a test of the pedigrees of the birds themselves, 

 than need language be a test of true race connection amongst 

 mankind. 



Many birds imitate one another's cries, and the Hon. Dailies 

 Harrington,* long ago showed by experiment, that nestlings 

 learn their song from their parents, and even their call note, and 

 if taken away very early from the nest, learn the song of any 

 other bird with which they are associated, and then do not acquire 

 that proper to their own species, even if opportunity be afforded. 



If nestling birds were brought up apart from other birds, 

 they would no more sing, than would men similarly reared have 

 any idea of talking to one another. 



Under these circumstances the birds would utter only what 

 Barrington terms their chirp, a cry for food, which, peculiar to 

 each species, is uttered by all young birds, but which is entirely 

 lost as the bird reaches maturity. Untaught men would be as 

 speechless as apes, far less able to communicate with one 

 another than deaf mutes who watch the communications of 

 others. It is a pity that it is impossible, on humanitarian 

 grounds, to repeat now the experiment of King Psammetichus. 

 It would be interesting to watch the result. 



In the case of the other smaller species of Paradise Bird 

 found in the Aru Islands, the King-bird (Cicinnurus regius) the 

 males in full plumage seemed as common as the simple brown 

 young males and females. The natives knew these latter well, 

 as forms of the brilliant red bird, though so vastly different, and 

 several times pointed them out to me, as " Gobi, gobi," their 

 name for the " King-bird." 



The King-birds were even more abundant at Wanumbai than 

 the larger species. The males, when settled in the trees, con- 

 stantly uttered a cry which is very like that of the Wryneck 

 or Cuckoo's Mate. I saw most of them in the lower trees of 

 the forest, at about 30 feet from the ground. One shot by 



* " Experiments and Observations on the Singing of Birds," by the Hon. 

 Daines Barrington. Phil. Trans. Yol. LXIII. 1773, p. 249.^ A. B. 

 Wallace, " Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," p. 220. 

 London, Macmillan, 1875. 



