222 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. 



evidence to show that birds of different species, whether in a 

 state of nature or domestication, frequently imitate one 

 another's song; and singing is certainly instinctive, for 

 Couch says that he knew a gold-finch, which had never 

 heard the song of its own species, nevertheless singing this 

 song, though tentatively and imperfectly * 



Yarrell tells of a hawfinch that learnt the song of a 

 "blackbird, though afterwards it quite forgot this song, 

 which could not have happened with its natural music, f a 

 fact which shows that although imitation is able largely to 

 modify instinct, its effects are not so deeply engrained as 

 those which are stamped by heredity. Even the sparrow, 

 which naturally can scarcely be said to have a song, will 

 learn the song of a linnet,^ and Dureau de la Malle gives the 

 case of wild blackbirds in his garden learning a tune from a 

 caged bird ;§ similarly, he taught a starling the Marseillaise, 

 and from this bird all the other starlings in a canton to which 

 he took it learned the air. In this way, too, many birds 

 acquire the song of their foster-parents of other species. [j 

 Lastly, a number of observations on wild birds in America 

 imitating each other's music have lately been published by 

 Mr. E. E. Fish.f 



It is certain, however, that some birds have a much 

 greater aptitude than others, both for learning and retaining 

 the songs of different species. Thus a blackbird [starling ?] 

 has been known so well to imitate the crowing of a cock as 

 to deceive the cocks themselves,** while Yarrell says the same 

 tiling of a starling's power of imitating the cackling of a hen. ft 

 Of course such facts are notorious as regards the Mocking- 

 bird {Tardus polyglottus), and also, at least when in a state 



appears serves to alarm the chickens, though the latter are not aborigines 

 of the country." And many similar instances might be given. 



* Illustrations of Instinct, p. 113. See also Bechstein, Slubenvogel, 

 4th ed., p. 7. 



t Brit. Birds, vol. i, p. 486. J Descent of Man, p. 370. 



§ Anns, des Sc. Nat., 3rd series. 2 vol. Tome x, p. 118. 



|| Barrington, Phil. Trans., 1773, p. 264. 



Tl Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Nat. Sc. 1881, pp. 23-6. 

 ** Loundouri" s Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. iv, p. 433. 



+t Loc. cit., vol. i, p. 204 ; also in 4th ed., vol. ii, pp. 229-30, where it is 

 said on the authority of sundry observers, that starlings in a state of nature 

 also imitate the kestrel, wryneck, partridge, moorhen, coot, oyster-catcher, 

 golden plover, redshank, curlew, whimbrel, herring-gull, quail, and corn- 

 crake, while Professor Newton tells me that at Cambridge he has heard the 

 starlings very perfectly imitating the quacking of ducks. 



