174 EVOLUTION OF BIRD- SONG 



been mentioned, is said to imitate other birds for 

 the purpose of attracting them within range of 

 its attack (Yarrell, 4th ed. vol. i. p. 201). Yarrell 

 noticed that the red-backed shrike has a note like 

 the house-sparrow. This seems to be an alarm-cry 

 resembling the word tell, and pronounced louder 

 than the tell of the house -sparrow. I have only 

 heard it used by the shrike in May. Bechstein 

 recorded the imitativeness of both the woodchat 

 shrike and the lesser shrike in confinement {op. tit.}. 



Mimicry is by no means confined to birds of 

 the north temperate zone : even in Australia, where 

 bird-song is not so fluent or melodious as in Europe, 

 some excellent imitators are found. Dr. Stephenson 

 stated that the Menura Alberti (Prince Albert's lyre- 

 bird), a bird about as large as a fowl, imitates with 

 its powerful musical voice any bird which it may 

 chance to hear near it ; the note of the " laughing 

 jackass" it imitates to perfection. Its own whistle is 

 exceedingly beautiful and varied (Gould's Handbook 

 to the Birds of Australia, vol. i. p. 308). Mr. A. A. 

 Leycester had heard one which had taken up its 

 quarters within 200 yards of a sawyer's premises, 

 and had " made itself perfect with all the noises of 

 the sawyer's homestead the crowing of the cocks, 

 the cackling of the hens, and the barking and 



