152 



EVOLUTION OF BIRD-SONG 



there are great differences in individuals as singers 

 (vol. ii. p. 155). Sterland wrote of the starling, 

 that the woods "resound with their prolonged 

 whistle, alternating with an oft -repeated gurgling 

 note" {pp. cit. p. 126); but I have noticed that 

 this prolonged whistle is heard much less often 

 in autumn than in spring. I once heard a robin, 

 apparently in good health, utter a strange cry, squee, 

 much prolonged, and somewhat resembling the low 

 currr alarm of the lesser whitethroat, but totally 

 unlike any note I had heard uttered by a robin. 

 It was repeated several times at intervals, and 

 seemed to be intended as a call-note, or as an alarm. 

 The bird was about ten yards distant. In the follow- 

 ing year, in autumn, I heard the same cry uttered 

 twice by a robin in my garden, which was not more 

 than half a mile from the scene of the former 

 incident. 



Mr. C. F. Archibald, of Rusland Hall, Ulverston, 

 writes that in the spring of 1889 he heard a bird, 

 which he was practically sure was a robin, sing an 

 abnormal song like a tit's tzee tzee cJie cJie che cJie che 

 die che. (The cry here alluded to is probably the 

 long phrase of the blue tit.) The bird sang in 

 the evening continuously, sometimes trying a few 

 notes of the robin's song, but these were a failure 



