APPENDIX. 137 



Genesis of Bird Song. — Contin. 



out of sight in the foliage ; then, in an access of rapture, soaring vertically 

 to a height of a hundred feet, with measured wing-beats, like those of a 

 heron; or mounting suddenly in a wild, hurried zigzag, then slowly 

 circling downward, to sit at last with tail outspread fanwise, and vans 

 glistening white in the sunshine, expanded and vibrating, or waved lan- 

 guidly up and down with a motion like that of some broad-winged butter- 

 fly at rest on a flower." — Hudson, W. H. : Music and dancmg in Nature. 

 (Longman's Mag., vol. xv., 1890, pp. 597-610.) 



See Darwin, C. : The Descent of Man (N. Y., 1872), vol. ii. pp. 65-68. — 

 Fish, E. E. : Dancing Gander. (Pop. Sci. Mo. vol. xxv., 1884, pp. 715-716.) 

 — Nutting, C. C. : Chiroxiphea linearis, Bp. (U. S. Nat. Mus. Proceedings, 

 vol. vi., 1883, pp. 384-385.) — Some Western Birds (cranes), Putnam's 

 Mo., vol. iv., 1854, p. 80. — Wallace, A. R. : (Birds of Paradise) The 

 Malay Archipelago, pp. 466-467. 



" Between these two opposing tendencies, one urging to variation, the 

 other to permanence (for Nature herself is half radical, half conservative), 

 the language of birds has grown from rude beginnings to its present 

 beautiful diversity ; and whoever lives a century of millenniums hence 

 will listen to music such as we in this day can only dream of. Inap- 

 preciably but ceaselessly the work goes on.i Here and there is born 

 a master-singer, a feathered genius,^ and every generation makes its 



1 Such was the author's belief. His words are " The end is not yet." 



2 " Died, at the house of Colonel O'Kelly, in Half-moon Street, Piccadilly, 

 his wonderful parrot, who had been in his family thirty years, having been 

 purchased at Bristol out of a West India ship. It sang, with the greatest 

 clearness and precision, Psalm CIV., ' The Banks of the Dee,' ' God save 

 the King,' and other favorite songs; and, if it blundered in any one, 

 instantly began again, till it had the tune complete. One hundred guineas 

 had been refused for it in London." — Gentleman's Mag., pt. 2, vol. Lxxii., 

 1802, p. 967. (Another account, Gentleman's Mag-) pt. 2, vol. Ivii., 1787, p. 

 1197.) 



But long before the day of this genius, Rome could boast of a lark 

 that, after singing divinely, would pronounce the names of the saints 

 in most musical Italian, carrying his repertoire of sweet words up to 

 fairly astonishing numbers. Father Kircher — who, by the way, has not 

 a little valuable matter hid away in the hard shell of his old Latin — was 

 overcome with wonder at the performance of this bird. He could hardly 

 he persuaded that he was not listening to a human voice, and was con- 

 vinced without further argument that all birds with melodious throats 

 might not only sing the music, but speak the language, of men. 



