332 THE STRUCTURE AND LIFE OF BIRDS CHAP. 



all the chorus of the woods that he is to pick out and 

 imitate ? Mr. Witchell, who has written much upon 

 the subject, holds that all birds learn their songs 

 from their parents or from other birds. Every one of 

 them, according to him, is a mimic, and is constantly 

 imitating others. We are thus reduced to hopeless 

 confusion. In an elaborate song we have to pick out 

 the bird's ancestral music from all the superadded 

 variations. This is easy with a caged bird, because 

 we can learn his proper song from his kinsmen in 

 the woods. But if there is no limit to imitation 

 among wild birds, chaos must result, and it would be 

 far more difficult to learn the distinctive song of each 

 species than it is. Confronted with the fact that 

 nearly related birds living widely separated often 

 have a similar song, Mr. Witchell is able still to 

 cling to his theory. But if birds have to learn their 

 notes by imitation, surely the American Ferruginous 

 Thrush would by this time have picked up a different 

 song from our common Thrush ; the Shore Lark of 

 America would not sing like our Skylark, and the 

 American Snipe would have a different cry from 

 ours. 1 It is a remarkable fact that many birds that 

 are good mimics have little song of their own. This 

 is the case with Parrots, Jays, Jackdaws, Starlings, 

 and Bullfinches. It would seem as if it were an 

 advantage to the mimic to have no old family 

 music for the acquired song to drive out or modify, 

 and this tells strongly against the notion that singing 



1 See " Bird Song and its Scientific Teaching," by C. A. 

 Witchell, in the ProC. Cotteswohi Naturalists' Field Club, vol. x., 

 part iii., p. 238. 



