xni INSTINCT AND REASON 333 



is taught by each pair to their offspring. But 

 it must be owned that there are exceptions. The 

 White-banded Mocking-bird of Patagonia not only 

 imitates every other bird, but has a glorious song of 

 his own that surpasses all that he mimics. 



I have already mentioned the remarkable fact that 

 some birds that have little or no song in the wild 

 state have highly developed song-muscles which they 

 can turn to account when subjected to instruction 

 in captivity. The Bullfinch, is perhaps, the most 

 remarkable example of this. His finely equipped 

 organ of voice suggests that Bullfinches were once 

 great songsters, but that they have lost the art of 

 singing. If this is so, the theory that song is instinc- 

 tive is not affected, since it is quite possible that in a 

 musical species individuals might be born who had 

 no impulse to sing ; and if the species did not suffer 

 through this, there is no reason why the song should 

 not have become obsolete, while the organ of voice, 

 being so small as to draw but slightly on the' bird's 

 vital energy, might remain. 



The conclusions, then, that we come to are — (1) That 

 song is instinctive. (2) That in many birds it requires 

 to be awakened : they must hear their parents sing, 

 but they pick up the song so quickly that to speak of 

 their learning it by instruction is absurd. (3) That 

 when a good singer learns another bird's song his own is 

 generally traceable still. The several songs of Daines 

 Barrington's Linnets may have been Linnets' songs 

 with variations. 



