COURTSHIP AMONG BIRDS 125 



both the human voice and songs such as that of the Canary. 

 This fact becomes still more remarkable when we reflect 

 that the natural voice of the Parrot, as we have just 

 remarked, attains to no more than a harsh screech. How 

 is it that, capable of so much, it has achieved so little ? 

 The same question may be asked in the case of the 

 Raven, This bird has a syrinx indistinguishable from 

 that of the Nightingale, save in point of size ; yet 

 the Raven's voice is never musical, nor can it be 

 trained to such an achievement. Like the Parrot, 

 however, it can be taught to speak, though its vocabulary 

 is never so extensive. One would have imagined that 

 when the syrinx of, say, the Raven, or any of the Crow 

 tribe, was compared with that of the Nightingale or the 

 Skylark, some structural differences, commensurate with 

 the difference in performance, would be discovered ; but 

 such {& not the case. 



What interpretation are we to place on these para- 

 doxical facts ? One cannot help asking why seven pairs 

 of muscles should have been produced by one group of 

 birds to perform what can as easily be achieved in 

 another by two ? It is true that the more generously 

 endowed species are musicians by birth, the others only 

 by training. But one cannot make a silk purse out of a 

 sow's ear. In like manner one asks why male and female, 

 possessing precisely similar voice-organs, should not sing 

 equally well, but they do not. Evidently mere mechanism 

 does not alone answer these questions. 



Some, perhaps, may see in them instances of what 

 is known as " Hypertely," wherein the bounds of mere 

 utility seem to be transcended. Hypertely, however, 

 implies something more than this : it implies a shooting 

 beyond the mark, the overdoing of a feature, where the 



