1 50 E VOL UTION OF BIRD-SONG 



manner from the Kingham birds, though it would 

 be impossible to describe the difference. I think I 

 have noticed the same in the case of the chaffinch " 

 {A Year zvith the Birds, by an Oxford Tutor, second 

 edition, p. 173). 



A peculiar variation of the song of the starling 

 has been already noticed (pp. 83, 84). 



On 3rd June 1 891, while walking from Chepstow 

 to Tintern — some five miles distant — I listened to 

 many chaffinches which were then in full song, and 

 I stayed for a few minutes near six of them. These 

 chaffinches sang a longer phrase than the usual run 

 of those about Stroud, which is twenty miles from 

 this locality, — the increase being readily detected in 

 a double occurrence of the common penultimate and 

 last syllables, which may be readily distinguished. 

 In the chapter treating of music some variation in 

 the notes of the chaffinch is recorded. 



The varying degrees of excellence in nightingales 

 has been noticed. Mr. Harting observed that the 

 strain of the blackcap " is somewhat varied in every 

 repetition" {Birds of Middlesex, p. 49). Quoting 

 Mr. J. V. Stewart, he gives the song of the willow- 

 warbler in Donegal as a succession of ten whistled 

 notes descending from E to the C below its octave, 

 in the key of C. This clearly differs from the song 



