176 WOOD NOTES WILD. 



IMITATION. Contin. 



" [The sedge warbler] is a most remarkable species, and like the 

 American mocking-bird, famous for his powers of imitation. It mimics 

 the song or cry of the swallow, sparrow, thrush, lark, etc., so perfectly 

 that you can hardly tell the difference." Taylor, J. E. : Half-hours in the 

 Green Lanes (London, 1890), p. 140. 



" There is a marked distinction between the call-notes of birds, which 

 are hereditary and invariable, and the song, which is an accomplishment, 

 the result of effort and practice, even in those kinds which sing when free 

 and wild. Most people who have reared a young thrush or blackbird 

 will have noticed that as soon as the wild birds begin to sing in early 

 spring the tame bird imitates and reproduces by degrees the same notes. 

 The song of our canaries, which in their own country is so poor that they 

 have been said not to sing at all, has been learned entirely from the gold- 

 finches and linnets which have shared their cages, though the vocal organs 

 which the canary had but did not use are so superior to those of its teach- 

 ers that it has now learned to outsing them both. Among birds, as well 

 as men, there are non-progressive races which are indifferent to ' self- 

 improvement ' and never try to learn a song of their own, much less imi- 

 tate the voices of other birds or of men. But the desire to gain new notes 

 is very much more common than most people imagine, and we believe 

 there are at least twenty kinds which are able to reproduce even the com- 

 plex forms of articulate human speech.' The Spectator. 



In passing, this writer, like our author, takes a more 

 hopeful view of the art-progress of the birds than the 

 author of the " Journal of a Naturalist " : 



" From various little scraps of intelligence scattered through the sacred 

 and ancient writings, it appears certain, as it was reasonable to conclude, 

 that the notes now used by birds, and the voices of animals, are the same 

 as uttered by their earliest progenitors." Knapp, J. L.: Journal of a 

 Naturalist, p. 267. 



For further particulars on the point of imitation, see Dom. Habits of 

 Birds. (Lib. Ent. Knowl. London, 1833, pp. 316-339.) Nature, vol. xvii., 

 1877-78, pp. 361, 380, 438. Nor. Brit. Rev. vol. xxx., 1859, pp. 325-327. 

 Yarrell, W. : Hist, of British Birds, 4th ed., vol. ii. p. 229. 



Mr. W. H. Hudson gives the following description of 

 the imitative power of a Patagonian artist, the white- 

 banded mocking-bird (Mimus triurus) : 



