124 THE COURTSHIP OF ANIMALS 



most accomplished performers are to be found among 

 that great group of birds known as the Passeres, or 

 perching birds, v/herein the number of these muscles is 

 never less than five pairs, and generally rises to seven. 

 This association of musculature with performance is 

 exactly what we should expect. In Nature, however, 

 it is always the unexpected that happens. In the first 

 place, the females are, so far as the dissecting-knife and 

 the microscope can show, as well provided as the males, 

 yet they do not sing. In the second, the Nightingale 

 and the Crow are equally endowed, so far as we can 

 discover, yet it is unnecessary to state that the talents 

 which the Crow possesses are never used ! More dis- 

 concerting still is the reflection that the Parrot, which is 

 far less generously endowed by Nature in so far as singing 

 muscles are concerned, is a much more skilful performer, 

 inasmuch as it will reproduce with equal fidelity the 

 human voice and the song of the Canary ! The latter 

 feat, at any rate, has been accomplished with amazing 

 accuracy both by the little Budgerigar {Melopsittacus 

 undulatus) and the Quaker Parrot (Myopsittacus monachus). 

 In their wild state the Parrot family are notorious for 

 their discordant cries. It is therefore the more remark- 

 able that such feats should be capable of attainment. But 

 wherefore the elaborate syrinx of the Nightingale, if the 

 simple type seen in the Parrot is capable of the same 

 result, and why the elaborate syrinx in the case of the 

 Crow, which never attains to a greater perfection of vocal 

 effort than the wild Parrot ? ' 



One speaks of the syrinx of the Parrot as of a simpler 

 type because of its feebler musculature and the lesser 

 complexity of its framework, but it is nevertheless a more 

 efficient instrument, since it is capable of reproducing 



