418 THE DESCENT OF MAN, 



found. The hen, when she has laid an egg, "repeats the 

 same note very often, and concludes with the sixth above, 

 wliich she holds for a longer time;"* and thus she expresses 

 her joy. Some social birds apparently call to each other 

 for aid; and as they flit from tree to tree the flock is kept 

 together by chirp answering chirp. During the nocturnal 

 migrations of geese and other water-fowl sonorous clangs 

 from the van may be heard in tlie darkness overhead, 

 answered by clangs in the rear. Certain cries serve as 

 danger signals, which, as the sportsman knows to his cost, 

 are understood by the same species and by others. The 

 domestic cock crows, and the humming-bird chirps in 

 triumph over a defeated rival. The true song, however, of 

 most birds and various strange cries are chiefly uttered 

 during the breeding-season, and serve as a charm, or merely 

 as a call-note to the other sex. 



Naturalists are much divided with respect to the object 

 of the singing of birds. Few more careful observers ever 

 lived than Montagu, and he maintained that the " males 

 of song-birds and of many others do not in general search 

 for the female, but on the contrary, their business in the 

 spring is to perch on some conspicuous spot, breathing out 

 their full and amorous notes, which, by instinct, the female 

 knows, and repairs to the spot to choose her mate.'''t Mr. 

 Jenner Weir informs me that this is certainly the case with 

 the nightingale. Bechstein, who kept birds during his 

 whole life, asserts " that the female canary always chooses 

 the best singer, and that in a state of nature the female 

 finch selects that male out of a hundred whose notes please 

 her most."]; There can be no doubt that birds closely 

 attend to each other^s song. Mr. Weir has told me of the 

 case of a bullfinch which had been taught to pipe a German 

 waltz, and who was so good a performer that he cost ten 

 guineas; when this bird was first introduced into a room 

 where other birds were kept and he began to sing, all the 

 others, consisting of about twenty linnets and canaries, 



The Hon. Daines Barrington, " Philosoph. Transact.," 1773, p. 252. 



f " Ornitliological Dictionary." 1833, p. 475. 



if " Naturgescliiclite der Stubenvogel," 1840, s. 4. Mr. Harrison 

 Weir likewise writes to me: " I am informed that the best singing 

 males generally get a mate first, when they are bred in the same 

 room." 



