BIRDS. 419 



ranged themselves on the nearest side of their cages and list- 

 ened with the greatest interest to the new performer. Many 

 naturalists believe that the singing of birds is almost ex- 

 clusively " the effect of rivalry and emulation," and not 

 for the sake of charming their mates. This was the 

 opinion of Daiues Barring-ton and White of Selborne, who 

 both especially attended to this subject.* Barrington, 

 however, admits that "superiority in song gives to birds an 

 amazing ascendency over others, as is well known to bird- 

 catchers." 



It is certain that there is an intense degree of rivalry 

 between the males in their singing. Bird fanciers match 

 their birds to see which will sing longest; and I was told 

 by Mr. Yarrell that a first-rate bird will sometimes sing 

 till he drops down almost dead, or according to Bechstein, f 

 quite dead from rupturing a vessel in the lungf/. What- 

 ever the cause may be, male birds, as I hear from Mr. 

 Weir, often die suddenly during the season of song. That 

 the habit of singing is sometimes quite independent of love 

 is clear, for a sterile, hybrid canary-bird has been described^ 

 as singing while viewing itself in a mirror and then dash- 

 ing at its own image ; it likewise attacked with fury 

 a female canary when put into the same cage. The 

 jealousy excited by the act cf singing is constantly taken 

 advantage of by bird-catchers; a male, in good song, is 

 hidden and protected, while a stuffed bird surrounded by 

 limed twigs is expose to view. In this manner, as Mr. 

 Weir informs me, a man has in the course of a single day 

 caught fifty, and in one instance seventy male chaffinches. 

 The power and inclination to sing differ so greatly with birds 

 that although the price of an ordinary male chaffinch is only 

 sixpence, Mr. Weir saw one bird for which the bird-catcher 

 asked three pounds ; the test of a really good singer being 

 that it will continue to sing while the cage is swung round 

 the owners head. 



That male birds should sing from emulation as well as 

 for charming the female is not at all incompatible; and it 

 might have been expected that these two habits would 



*' Philosophical Transactions," 1773, p. 263. White's "Natural 

 History of Selborne," 1825, vol. i, p. 246. 

 f "Naturgesch. der Stubenvogel," 1840, s. 252. 

 JMr. Bold, "Zoologist," 1843-44, p. 659. 



