APPENDIX. 175 



Imitation. — Contin. 



their song is a mixtuire ; as in the instance which I have before stated of 

 the sparrow. I must own, also, that I conceived from the experiment of 

 educating the robin under a nightingale, that the scholar would fix upon 

 the note which it first heard when taken from the nest ; I imagined, like- 

 wise, that if the nightingale had been fully in song, the instruction for a 

 fortnight would have been sufficient. I have, however, since tried the 

 following experiment, which convinces me so much depends upon cir- 

 cumstances and perhaps caprice in the scholar, that no general inference 

 or rule can be laid down with regard to either of these suppositions, I 

 educated a nestling robin under a woodlark-linnet, which was full in 

 song and hung very near to him for a month together ; after which the 

 robin was removed to another house, where he could only hear a sky- 

 lark-linnet. The consequence was that the nestling did not sing a note 

 of woodlark (though I afterwards hung him again just above the wood- 

 lark-linnet), but adhered entirely to the song of the skylark-linnet." — 

 Barrington, D. : Roy. Soc. of London. Philos. Trans. , 1773, vol. Ixiii. pp. 249-291. 



For contrary opinion, namely that the song of birds is innate, see 

 BlackTfrall, J., in Philos. Mag. and Journal (London),vol. Ixvi., July, 1825. 

 An extract from this paper is to be found in Amer. Jour, of Science and 

 Arts, vol. X., Feb., 1826, pp. 390-391. —See also Flagg, W. : A Year with 

 the Birds, p. 28. — Nicols, A.: Snakes, Marsupials, and Birds (London, 

 n. d.), pp. 202-205. 



For power of imitation in the bobolink, see Littell's Living Age, 

 vol. xxix., 1851, p. 312. 



For power of imitation in the crow, see Cabot, J. E. : Our Birds, and 

 their Ways. (Atlantic Mo., vol. i., December, 1857, p. 211.) 



The power of imitation is certainly very commonly 

 developed among the song-birds. An old bird-fancier (A 

 Natural History of English Song-birds, London, 1779), 

 shows that a round dozen of choice English songsters were 

 known a hundred years ago as accomplished borrowers of 

 other birds and of man. 



" When I say that no living cantatrice can interpret this beautiful old- 

 fashioned song [The Last Rose of Summer] with such sweetness and genu- 

 ineness of expression as can the bullfinch, I am sure of stating a truth that 

 will not be disputed by anybody who has chanced to hear them both." — 

 Austin, G. L.: Friendship of Birds. (Appleton's Journal, w. s. vol. iii., p. 161.) 



