CHAFFINCHES. 131 



Natures, p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of lien 

 chaffinches, but none of cocks.* 



Tour method of accounting for the periodical motions of 



* Amongst our vernal birds of passage, the cock birds generally arrive 

 about a fortnight before the hens, a circumstance well known to the bird- 

 catchers, who are certain thai all which are caught out of the first flight will 

 prove males. The cock nightingales generally appear in the neighbourhood of 

 London on the 12th of April. They are sometimes taken a few days earlier, 

 but that is the day upon which those who make a trade of catching them 

 depend upon their arrival. 



It is very difficult to understand the reason of this precession of the males. 

 It has been supposed by some writers, that the females were delayed by the 

 care of a young brood ; but it seems to me nearly certain that our summer 

 birds do not breed again when they visit Africa during our winter months. 

 Those who have been accustomed to keep nightingales in confinement know, 

 that one which has been taken from the nest before it could fly, and reared in 

 a cage, will never sing the true song of its species, unless it have the advantage 

 of hearing an old nightingale sing throughout the autumn and winter; that a 

 young nightingale caught in the summer after the old birds have begun to 

 moult and ceased singing, will sing rather more correctly than that which was 

 taken from the nest, because it has had the advantage of hearing the notes of 

 its parent longer ; but that, without further education under an old male in 

 autumn and winter, it will only be able to execute parts of the nightingale's 

 beautiful melody, and will repeat too often some of the loud notes, and harp 

 upon them in a manner that is quite disagreeable. These two classes of young 

 birds seldom become good songsters in confinement ; because, unless a consider- 

 able number of old nightingales are kept in the same room with them, they 

 have not the same opportunity of hearing and learning that they would have 

 had in the woods ; and if any other birds are kept within hearing, they will 

 imitate their notes, and retain the habit of singing them. The old nightingates 

 cease to sing in England for the most part towards the end of June, and after 

 that time the young ones can have no farther opportunity of learning their 

 song while they remain in Europe ; they merely record, or practise in the 

 throat, what they can recollect. 



I may take this opportunity of making some further remarks on the acquisi- 

 tion of song or peculiar notes by young birds. The nightingale, which far 

 surpasses all other birds in the natural modulation and variety of its notes, and 

 cannot be equalled by any in execution, even if they have learned its song, is 

 peculiarly apt in its first year, when confined, to learn the song of any other 

 bird that it hears. Its beautiful song is the result of long attention to the 

 melody of the older birds of its species. The young whinchat, wheatear, and 

 others of the genus Saxicola, which have little natural variety of song, are no 

 less ready in confinement to learn from other species, and become as much 

 better songsters as the nightingale degenerates, by borrowing from others. 

 The bullfinch, whose natural notes are weak, harsh, and insignificant, has a 

 greater facility than any other bird of learning human music. It is pretty 

 evident that the Germans, who bring vast numbers of them to London which 



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