PAIRING AND EARLY SONG 359 



own music ; and sometimes it seems to break off from sheer 

 insufficiency of vitality to attempt the difficult final passage. 

 It is very interesting to listen to two or three cock chaffinches 

 singing within earshot of one another on a warm February 

 morning, and gradually improving in delivery under the 

 stimulus of practice in competition. One bird is generally 

 more perfect than the others ; he may sing the song perfectly 

 nearly every time, while the others do it seldom. The 

 instinct of rivalry keeps them sedulously to their song ; and 

 as the day advances they are often noticeably more perfect 

 than a few hours before. A day or two later, they execute 

 their roulade so spiritedly and smoothly that one might think 

 they could never have felt any difficulty about it. Yet it is 

 impossible not to recognise that they have a force of inertia 

 and unfamiliarity to overcome at the beginning, though the 

 spirit which impels them may be an almost completely 

 unconscious instinct of vitality, and no such deliberate and 

 critical purpose as directs a human singer. Chaffinches' 

 songs vary a good deal ; one bird's song differs from 

 another's, and the general type of song seems to be different 

 in different districts. But its general character is the same 

 always ; there is the rapid preliminary run and the final 

 ascending flourish, which makes the difficulty for the bird 

 when it first begins to sing. 



Only a song with a definite and rather elaborate pattern 

 allows us clearly to mark the stages by which the bird reaches 

 its full spring skill. The yellowhammer sings a song of much 

 the same kind, and begins it at about the same date. It is 

 a plaintive song, as the chaffinch's is emphatically a gay 

 one ; instead of a rising flourish, it ends with two lower notes. 

 But there is the change from the opening notes in each case, 

 and the consequent difficulty for the bird when it begins to 

 sing in February. The yellowhammer's song can be well 



