276 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



of song, and was perfectly mute in less than a fort- 

 night. 



44 This robin afterwards sung three parts in four 

 nightingale; and the rest of his song was what the 

 bird-catchers call rubbish, or no particular note 

 whatsoever. 



" I hung this robin nearer to the nightingale than 

 to any other bird ; from which first experiment I 

 conceived, that the scholar would imitate the master 

 which was at the least distance from him. 



44 From several experiments, however, which I 

 have since tried, I find it to be very uncertain what 

 notes the nestling will most attend to, and often 

 their song is a mixture ; as in the instance which I 

 have before stated of the sparrow. 



'* I must own also, that I conceived from the ex- 

 periment of educating the robin under a nightingale, 

 that the scholar would fix upon the note which it first 

 heard when taken from the nest ; I imagined like- 

 wise that, if the nightingale had been fully in song, 

 the instruction for a fortnight would have been 

 sufficient. 



" I have, however, since tried the following expe- 

 riment, which convinces me so much depends upon 

 circumstances and perhaps caprice in the scholar, 

 that no general inference or rule can be laid down 

 with regard to either of these suppositions. 



44 1 educated a nestling robin under a woodlark- 

 linnet, which was full in song and hung very near to 

 him for a month together ; after which the robin was 

 removed to another house, where he could only hear 

 a skylark-linnet. The consequence was that the 

 nestling did not sing a note of woodlark (though I 

 afterwards hung him again just above the woodiark- 

 linnet), but adhered entirely to the song of the sky- 

 lark-linnet*." 



* Philosophical Transactions, vol. Ixiii. 



