Habit and Instinct. 



How far does it extend? Mr. C. A. Witchell, who 

 paid much attention to the subject, is unhesitatingly of 

 opinion that though the call-notes, alarm notes, and other 

 such utterances are instinctive, yet the song itself is 

 traditional and the result of imitation. With regard to 

 the former point, I have no doubt whatever, from my own 

 observations, that the notes of young chicks, guinea-fowl, 

 peewits, partridges, pheasants, and moorhens are instinc- 

 tively definite; as are probably those of the young fly- 

 catcher and young jay, though in these cases the birds 

 were brought to me when a few days old. Nor can there 

 be any question that the call-note and the warning note 

 of the hen are also truly instinctive, though deferred. Mr. 

 H. J. Charbonnier, a careful observer, tells me that a 

 young magpie, which was brought to him as a nestling a 

 fortnight old, always chattered and croaked in true magpie 

 language, and was never heard to imitate other birds. 

 Another magpie, however, picked up the note of the 

 sparrow, and generally talked " sparrow," though it would 

 sometimes introduce a few lower notes of its own proper 

 tongue. 



With regard to the latter point, there is undoubtedly a 

 good deal of evidence in favour of the contention which 

 Mr. Witchell espouses. One of the oldest observations is 

 as follows. The Hon. Daines Barrington * placed three 

 young linnets with three different foster-parents, the skylark, 

 the woodlark, and the titlark or meadow-pipit, and each 

 adopted, through imitation, the song of its foster-parent. 

 Nor did they abandon this for their own true song when 

 they were placed among songsters of their own species. 

 Mr. Witchell f quotes from a letter of Mr. W. A. P. Hughes, 

 who informed him that " a young bird (finch) reared by 



* Phil. Trans., 1773, p. 264. 



t " Evolution of Bird Song," pp. 172, 173. 



