EVOLUTION OF BIRD- SONG 



had a caged whinchat which was equally proficient 

 (Bechstein, Natural History of Cage Birds ^ p. 243). 

 I have heard several imitative stonechats. Bechstein 

 quotes Sweet as giving this bird the same character, 

 and Yarrell has the like observation (4th ed. vol. i. 

 p. 281). Mr. Harting remarks that the garden 

 warbler sometimes commences its song like a black- 

 bird {Birds of Middlesex, p. 50). The blackcap is 

 imitative ; but, like the blackbird, it sometimes post- 

 pones its efforts in this direction to the end of the 

 phrase. The whitethroat and lesser whitethroat 

 also are imitative. I have never heard an imitation 

 uttered by either chiffchaff, willow-warbler, or wood- 

 warbler. 



The Sylviin^, or Warblers 



Judging by resemblances of voice, I should place 

 the chiffchaff and willow -warbler with the white- 

 throat at the head of this list. I have described 

 how the nightingale calls its young, and also 

 commences its phrases, with the utterance of a little 

 upwardly-slurred whistle, like the alarm and call- 

 note of the chiffchaff and adult willow-warbler, and 

 also like the first of the two alarm -cries of the 

 redstart near its young. The whitethroat has an 



