44 'Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 



is of use to birds kept free or in a large pen, where parents and 

 young are liable to be at a distance from one another, when the former 

 are fed by their master; but the same signal is not often observed 

 in caged birds, on account of the young being always at the parents' 

 side and ready to feed, not needing to be called. On this account- 1 

 have had but few opportunities of studying the call to the young 

 to feed ; but I have heard the note in a few cases, in each of which 

 I noticed that it bore a general reseiublance to the kah, and in one 

 case I was able to study it in some detail. In this case the call was 

 given in the same tone of voice as the kah, but was usually a single 

 note, long-drawn-out and very plaintive ; it was given by the father 

 bird, and was repeated by him even in the intervals between retchings 

 in feeding the young. Each time the father began to give this note. 

 one of the young, being more energetic than the other, ran at once to 

 the parent and received the lion's share of food. 



8. Cry Inter]mediate Between the Kaii and the Coo. 



Occasionally the male gives a cry which has precisely the character 

 of the kah except for the timbre, which is a head-tone precisely like 

 the tone of the coo. I should name this cry, were it not for the 

 strange sound of the appellation, the coo-toncd kah. It is heard not 

 uncommonly Avhen a ma^e gives first the kah-of-excitement and then 

 the bowing-coo, this intermediate sound forming a transition from the 

 former to the latter. It is heard also, though more rarely, uncon- 

 nected with the bowing-coo. This intermediate cry, like the inter- 

 mediate between the alarm and the kah, is of interest as showing that 

 the vocal reactions of the ring-dove are not so definite and invariable 

 as one might suppose. 



9. The Coo. 



The coo is, in several respects, more musical than any of the 

 sounds previously described. For, first, the coo is more deliberate, 

 the other notes being more hurried ; second'y, the coo is more formal, 

 more fixed, more definite in pitch and in pitch-intervals ; thirdly, 

 the coo is in a head-tone, which is more musical than the chest-tone of 

 the alarm-note and the kah. 



