Rev. Vere Audry's Story. 267 



strain, in the manner of a blackbird. It would be 

 interesting to learn whether anyone has heard the 

 missel thrush sing a long strain, such as one hears 

 from the blackbird. This point appears to me im- 

 portant in connection with the fact that the young 

 blackbird, when commencing his full-toned song, 

 utters short strains, like a missel thrush." 



Mr. Witchell's closing words there raise the whole 

 question we have been asking about the young 

 cuckoos. Do the young birds instinctively sing the 

 song exactly after the type of that sung by the parent 

 bird, or do they catch up wiiat they may most hear, 

 and begin with that ; or do they in their song, as in 

 other things, sometimes show back-strokes — fallings 

 back on the habits of relations long differentiated, and 

 ranked now in a distinct, though related family ; or 

 is it possible that intimacies of a peculiar kind are 

 possible and more general than is ordinarily believed 

 between members of those related families ? These 

 are matters on which there is still much to be learned, 

 and which can only be learned by the observations of 

 close observers in different parts being systemati- 

 cally reported and compared. Here, for example, is 

 a letter written by the Rev. Vere Audry, and pub- 

 lished in The Spectator of April 25th, 1898 : 



JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES AMONG BIRDS. 



" Is this conduct usual, and can any of your 

 readers throw light upon it ? In this garden a thrush 

 is sitting on a nest of blackbird's eggs, now just 

 hatched. The nest is a blackbird's, the eggs were a 

 blackbird's, but a thrush sits upon them ; a cock 



