or song, to emphasise the points wherein 

 they differ. 



The study of our native song birds 

 will be found to contain many delight- 

 ful curiosities, and to present not a few 

 entertaining problems. For instance, all 

 our first-class melodists, such as the 

 Nightingale, Song Thrush, Blackcap 

 Warbler, Woodlark, and Garden Warbler, 

 are dressed in the most sober of sober 

 colours. Male migrants generally arrive 

 upon our shores before the females, and 

 at once commence to sing and practise 

 all kinds of curious antics in order to 

 attract the attention of their prospective 

 brides when they arrive. Individual 

 birds of the same species vary greatly in 

 the quality of their songs, and nearly all 

 the members of a species sometimes sing 

 better in one part of the country than 

 another. Birds are first-class plagiarists, 

 and not only copy each other's notes, 

 but upon occasion actually improve the 

 quality of the music they borrow. Some 

 of them, such as the Chaffinch, practise 

 their notes thousands of times per day, 

 and a Song Thrush sings as many as 

 sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. 



The following questions in regard to 

 the behaviour of some of our feathered 



