THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 19 7 



birds^* when tamed can be tanght to speak; and the 

 American mocking bird, which Dr. Golz, of BerUn, 

 a most competent judge, gives the precedence over all 

 species of nightingales,! imitates everything conceiv- 

 able, even to the creaking of a rusty hinge.:]: I think 

 this is easy to explain: the singers have had their pow- 

 ers improved by practice in learning their complicated 

 songs, and parrots and crows are endowed with unusual 

 ability for speech, for which imitation is particularly 

 essential. According to Karl Russ, these birds manifest 

 a certain degree of comprehension of the meaning of 

 words uttered by them, while other talking birds babble 

 meaninglessly, or warble the words in song. I take a 

 canary for our first example. Karl Euss says: " On the 

 23d of April, 1883, I called on the vrife of Commissioner 

 Graber in Berlin to see and hear her little feathered 

 talker. The lady received me with the warning that I 

 had probably come in vain, for the bird did not seem 

 inclined to talk that day. She told me that she had had 

 him for about three years, and believed him to be quite 

 young. From being a fine singer he suddenly stopped, 

 probably as a result of moulting, and as his silence 

 continued for some time she frequently said to him, 

 * Sing doch, sing doch, mein Matzchen, wie singst du? 

 widewidewitt! ' ^You can imagine my amazement,' 

 she continued, * when the canary pronounced for the 

 first time the words I had thus quite accidentally said 



* Karl Russ, Handbuch fiir Vugelliebhaber, Zuchter, und 

 Handler, ii. p. 1-30. 



t Ibid., i, p. 284. 



X [This the present editor can confirm in the g-reatest variety 

 of detail. He has heard two of these birds toofether imitatins:: the 

 "clippinfi:" of a gardener's trimming-shears, as if competing with 

 each other.] 



