254 
Willow Wren, Bds. Middlesex, 52; Chiffchaff, 53; Redstart, 
White of Selborne, 55; Blackcap, Bds. Middlesex, 49; Bottle- 
tit, Wood II., 306; Marsh Tit, Dixon, Rarer Bds., 68; 
Hooded Crow, 1 Yar., 2, 85; Rarer Bds., 120; Fish Crow, 
Wilson, Am. O., 2, 119; Chaffinch, Bechst. N. H. B., 185; 
Cuckoo, B. Middlesex, 119. 
I am enabled to bring before the Club a notable instance 
not only of imitative variation in a bird’s song, but also of the 
falsity of an important authoritative statement. 
In the “ Domestic Habits of Birds,” p. 319, may be found 
this remark upon the supposed imitativeness of the sedge- 
warbler: ‘and among some hundreds of these birds which we 
have listened to in the most varied situations in the three 
kingdoms, all seemed to have very nearly the same notes, 
repeated in the same order ; a fact which appears to us to be 
fatal to the inference of the notes being derived, not from one, 
but a number of other birds. For if this were so, it is not 
possible that these imitated notes should all follow in exactly 
or very nearly the same order in the song of each individual 
imitator in distant parts of the country. The close similarity 
of the notes thus alleged to be imitated cannot be denied; but 
taking all circumstances into account, we think it much more 
probable that these remarkable notes are original to the song 
of the sedgebird, and that we might, with equal justice, acuse 
the swallow and the skylark of borrowing from it.” 
This careful statement is sufficiently rebutted by a letter 
received by me from Mr O. V. Aplin, M.B.O.U., and author of 
“The Birds of Oxon”; he says: “In May, 1889, I listened to 
the most accomplished sedgewarbler I ever came across. It 
began several times with the ‘tut-tut-tut’ of the blackbird, 
and produced the following: green woodpecker, call—starling— 
blackbird, alarm and call-notes—corn bunting, (H. miliaria) 
song, exact (N.B.—This bird is fairly common there)—lark, 
song,—chaffinch, song and ‘pink’—greenfinch, double and 
single,—sparrow, call,—swallow, song,—redstart, alarm-note,— 
partridge, call,—nightingale, full bubbling notes.” 
Mr Aplin continues: “Over and over again I listened to 
these notes produced with the utmost fidelity. It was almost 
