4 oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



accurately the cackling of hens, the barking of dogs, the quacking of 

 ducks, and the bleating of sheep. Birds as well as mankind are apt 

 to be vain of their voices and seek to excel one another. Especially 

 is this the case with nightingales. In a hedge inhabited by them one 

 may often observe that their voices increase two, ay, threefold in 

 strength, and sometimes some of these birds are found with their 

 throats torn — they have simply sung themselves to death ! But not 

 only in music have birds been the model followed by man, but also 

 that peculiar and entertaining art, ventriloquism, has been copied 

 from them. Just as many of them sing out boldly and fill the air 

 with their melodies, others form their sounds without opening their 

 bills. The pigeon is a well-known instance of this ; its cooing can be 

 distinctly heard, although it does not open its bill ; the call is formed 

 internally in the throat and chest, and is only rendered audible by 

 resonance. Similar ways may be observed in many birds and other 

 animals. The clear, loud call of the cuckoo is, according to Nico- 

 lardot, only the resonance of a note formed in the bird. The whir- 

 ring of the snipe, which betrays the approach of the bird to the 

 hunter, is an act of ventriloquism. The frog also is said not to open his 

 mouth in croaking, but to create his far-reaching sounds by the roll- 

 ing of air in his intestines. Even the nightingale has certain notes 

 which are produced internally, and which are audible while the bill is 

 closed. So even the art of ventriloquism (if we may call it an art), 

 which is nowadays but little practiced, but which in former times was 

 highly esteemed, has been taught to man by the animals. 



Human society seems attractive to birds, as Nicolardot proves by 

 numerous instances ; especially have song-birds a great fondness for 

 human dwellings, and rarely do they go far away from them. It al- 

 most seems as if they were vain of the admiration bestowed on their 

 song. They lay and hatch better in parks than in woods. Nicolardot 

 says that the cuckoo, the crow, the quail, and the lark, never live in 

 districts entirely untenanted by man. There are quite a number of 

 city and village birds which always settle in the immediate neighbor- 

 hood of human dwellings. Among these are the starling, the nightin- 

 gale, the finch, and the sparrow, but above all the stork. All of these 

 birds are said to imitate, by their calls or their song, the human voice, 

 or else noises which are to be heard about dwellings. For instance, 

 it is said that the stork in Africa — though this we would not like to 

 vouch for — is dumb, and that his clappering here is but an imitation 

 of the sharpening of scythes. This sound is supposed to be specially 

 pleasing to the stork, because on freshly cut meadows he always finds 

 food in plenty, and therefore it is presumed that he imitates this noise 

 as suggestive of a rich dinner. All of these birds show great fondness 

 for, and are said to be capable of imitating, the human voice, if one 

 were only to take sufficient pains in training them. And, more than 

 this, they can repeat entire words like the parrot. That starlings and 



