Imitation. 177 



and remember them better, which they have been taught 

 just after eating. . . . Nine months of regular and con- 

 tinued instruction are necessary before the bird acquires 

 what amateurs call firmness ; for if the instruction cease 

 before this is obtained, they would destroy the air by 

 suppressing or displacing the different parts, and they often 

 forget it entirely at their first moulting. In general it is a 

 good plan to separate them from the other birds even after 

 they are perfect, because, owing to their great quickness in 

 learning, they would spoil the air entirely by introducing 

 wrong passages ; they must be helped to continue the song 

 when they stop, and the lesson must always be repeated 

 while they are moulting, otherwise they will become mere 

 chatterers. Different degrees of capacity are shown here, 

 as well as in other animals. One young bullfinch learns 

 with ease and quickness, another with difficulty and 

 slowly : the former will repeat, without hesitation, several 

 parts of a song ; the latter will hardly be able to repeat one 

 part, after nine months' uninterrupted teaching. But it has 

 been remarked that those birds which learn with most 

 difficulty remember the songs which they have once well 

 learned better and longer, and rarely forget them, even when 

 moulting. . . . Many birds, when young, will learn some 

 strains of airs whistled or played to them regularly every 

 day; but it is only those whose memory is capable of 

 retaining them that will abandon their natural song, and 

 adopt fluently and repeat without hesitation the air that 

 has been taught them. Thus a young goldfinch learns, it 

 is true, some part of the melody played to a bullfinch, but 

 it will never be able to render it as perfectly as this bird." * 

 We have now given at sufficient length some evidence 

 of imitation in the song or other utterances of birds. 



* For imitation in birds and also in mammals, see Romanes' " Mental 

 Evolution in Animals," pp. 222, 223. 



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