INTRODUCTION. 



SONGS OF TAME BIRDS. 



WHAT is most prized and admired in house birds is un- 

 doubtedly their song. This may be natural or artificial, the 

 former being as varied as the species of the birds, for I know 

 of no two indigenous species quite similar in their song ; I 

 ought, perhaps, to except the three species of shrike I have 

 given, which, from their surprising memory, can imitate the 

 songs of other birds so as to be mistaken for them : but a 

 naturalist would soon perceive a slight mixture of the song 

 natural to the imitator, and thus easily distinguish between 

 the shrike that copied, and the tit-lark or red-breast copied 

 from*. It is so much the more important to be well versed 

 in the different birds' songs, as to this knowledge alone we 

 are indebted for several curious observations on these pretty 

 creatures. 



An artificial song is one borrowed from a bird that the young 

 ones have heard singing in the room, a person's whistling, a 

 flageolet, or a bird-organ. Nearly all birds, when young, 

 will learn some strains of airs whistled or played to them regu- 

 larly every day ; but it is only those whose memory is capable 

 of retaining these 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 ; a difference not 

 caused by the greater or less suppleness of the organ, but rather 

 by the superiority of memory in the one species over that of 

 the other. 



We distinguish in birds a chirping and warbling, or song, 

 properly so called ; besides this, several species, with a large, 

 fleshy, undivided tongue, are able to repeat articulate sounds, 

 and they are then said to talk, such as parrots and jays. 



It is remarkable, that birds which do not sing all the year, 

 such as the redbreast, siskin, and goldfinch, seem obliged, after 

 moulting, to learn to warble, as though they had forgotten ; 

 but I have seen enough to convince me that these attempts are 



* Sec reasons for doubting this conclusion in Profesror Rennic's DOMESTIC 

 HABITS OF BIKDS, Chap. xvii. TRANSLATOR. 



