Imitation. 175 



which during ten minutes' singing imitated the notes of 

 no less than thirty-two different species of birds found in 

 the same locality. Mr. Chapman adds that this was a 

 phenomenal performance, and one he had never heard 

 approached, for, in his experience, many mocking-birds 

 have no notes but their own, and good mockers are 

 exceptional.* It would be interesting to gain further 

 information of the conditions under which good mockers 

 are developed. Is the sequence of imitative strains always 

 similar in the same individual ? Or does he recombine 

 them in new order ? There would seem to be here a field 

 for careful experiment and observation. 



Our common English jay has the reputation of being 

 a consummate imitator, sometimes of strange sounds. 

 Montagu says that the low song of one individual was 

 interspersed with sounds imitative of the bleating of a 

 lamb, the mewing of a cat, the note of the kite or buzzard, 

 the hooting of an owl, and the neighing of a horse ! 

 Bewick describes how a jay imitated the sound of a saw 

 so well as to cause much surprise, the day being Sunday. 

 And a correspondent in the Magazine of Natural History 

 — he may have been of Irish extraction! — says that one 

 imitated the goldfinch's song " most inimitably " (!), and 

 also the neighing of a horse.t 



One more example among wild birds must suffice. Mr. 

 "Warde Fowler, in his " Summer Studies of Birds and 

 Books," % gives a quotation from the diary in which he noted 

 the performance in Switzerland of a marsh warbler. "I 

 am now writing," he says, "in a cool spot between the 

 allotments and the Aar, and listening to the marsh-warbler, 



* "Birds of Eastern North America," p. 378. 



t These cases are taken from Yarrell, " British Birds," 2nd edit. vol. ii. 

 p. 122. 



X Pages 80, 81. 



