APPENDIX. 



IMITATIVE BIRDS AND THE NIGHTINGALE'S 

 SONG. 



IT is well known that there are whole classes of birds which, 

 instead of keeping to a definite song of their own, are apt 

 to imitate the songs of other birds, and bring it in into their 

 own in the most arbitrary way. The mocking-bird is the 

 typical bird of this class. But some of our common birds, 

 such as the starling and blackbird and thrush on the one 

 hand, and the little wren and the bullfinch on the other, 

 are apt to surprise those who closely watch them by occa- 

 sional departure from the ordinary notes and the introduction 

 of something quite fresh. This was brought before my mind 

 in the oddest way. As told in chapter vi., I had gone one 

 summer evening, about ten o'clock, to the vicarage park, 

 about a mile from the little house where I live in the 

 country, to hear a concert of nightingales, a concert which 

 was indeed richly enjoyable, the birds coming out in the 

 fullest songs with their trills, warbles, gurgles, jug-jug-jugs 

 as though in honour of our presence. When we left to 

 return home, it was near midnight ; and, strange to our ears, 

 as we trudged along in the moonlight, it seemed as though 

 from many distinct points the faint echo of nightingales' 

 songs came on the low wind. We could not have believed 

 that there were so many nightingales about in that district. 

 We published an account (abridged, compared with what it 



