THE SPARROW AND FINCH FAMILY 85 
frightened at his new surroundings, and became 
very tame. 
The cage of the young bird was near that of 
an ortolan, a Kuropean bird noted as a singer, 
and a common cage-bird. The baby chewink 
seemed to take a great liking to the stranger, 
and tried to do everything he did. Perhaps he 
felt the need of some education, since he had 
been deprived of his parents. At any rate, he 
evidently adopted the ortolan as his model. 
When the little one began to sing, he did not 
sing chewink but ortolan, and he did it so well 
that one could hardly tell which bird was sing- 
ing. The gentleman wanted to see if the little 
fellow would recognize the song of his own 
family. So he bought a full-grown chewink who 
was singing, and put him close to his young 
relative. The new bird was full of music, and 
sang a great deal. But the youngster paid no 
attention to him, and kept up his ortolan notes. 
This story shows that a bird does not always, 
if ever, know his native song by instinct, but has 
to learn it. It is supposed by those who have 
studied bird ways that he learns it from the old 
bird before he leaves the nest. 
