i6o The Irish Naturalist. [June, 



year the trees shed their cones and needles to form the firm 

 brown mass at our feet. A different chapter of the story is 

 revealed by the fine blue clay, which points to a shallow muddy 

 shore-line, like that which we still find on the Murrough of 

 Wicklow. Immediately above the bed of clay, the broad 

 shingle of the present beach catches our eye, recalling 

 the never-ceasing wear and tear of the ocean, ever carving and 

 levelling, and still making new land out of old ; while beyond 

 all, and over all, we catch a glimpse of the villas and spires 

 of Bray, and hear the rattle of vehicles and rumble of trains, 

 to remind us that from the dim twilight of the past, we have 

 emerged into the broad daylight of the present. 



THE SONG OF BIRDS. 



The Evolution of Blrd-Songr, with observations on the 

 Influence of heredity and Imitation. By Chari^^S A. 

 WlTCHEi,!.. London : A & C. Black, 1896. 5^. 



Mr. Witchell's ten years " scientific investigation of the various features 

 of bird-song" has borne fruit in a volume comprising less than 250 pages — 

 a fact proving that the author possesses in full the faculty of judicious 

 compression. Besides making it his object to acquaint himself as far as 

 possible with the notes of all his feathered neighbours, and to ascertain for 

 each variety of bird-note the kind of occasion on which it is uttered, 

 Mr. Witchell has addressed himself to the task of resolving the songs of 

 birds into their component parts ; and his account, given in these pages, 

 of the probable course of development of the phenomena of bird-song, is 

 in the main, well calculated to command general acceptance. Mr. 

 Witchell's theory is not a very elaborate one. The most primitive bird- 

 sounds he believes to have been combat-cries, which passed with more or 

 less of modification into defiance-cries and alarm-cries, while the latter, 

 as employed between members of a family, would form the origin of 

 the call-note. The earliest and of course simplest songs were mere 

 repetitions of the call-note, or sometimes " possibly" (p. 58) of the 

 defiance-cry. (Mr. Witchell might surely, on his own showing, have 

 laid more stress on this latter element ; and did he never hear a hen- 

 whitethroat, frenzied with rage at some peril to her new-fledged brood 

 burst into hysterical snatches of her lord's song ?) Simple songs would 

 be varied by being more rapidly and " forcefully" uttered, rivalry between 

 male birds occasionally instigating other modifications which, if 



