APPENDIX. 



Unging in a bird, except, perhaps, in the following 

 lines of Statins: 



66 3 



" Nunc volucrum novi 



" Queftus, inexpertumque carmen, 

 " Quod tacita flatuere bruma." 



Stat. Sylv. L. IV. Eel. 5. 



A young bird commonly continues to record 

 for ten or eleven months, when he is able to exe- 

 cute every part of his fong, which afterwards con- 

 tinues fixed, and is fcarcely ever altered * 



When the bird is thus become perfect in his let 

 fon, he is faid tofing his fong round, or in all its 

 varieties of paflages, which he connects together, 

 and executes without a paufe. 



I would therefore define a bird's fong to be a 

 fucceffion of three or more different notes, which 

 are continued without interruption during the fame 

 interval with a mufical bar of four crotchets in an 

 adagio movement, or whilft a pendulum fwings four 

 leconds. 



By the firft requifite in this definition, I mean to 



* The bird called a Twite* by the bird-catchers common- 

 ly flies in company with linnets, yet thefe two fpecies of 

 birds never learn each other's notes, which always continue 

 totally different. 



# Br. Zoo/. Vol. II. p. 315. 8w. prefent edition, I. p. ^93. 



X x 3 exclude 



