1 1 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Acquired notes. 



vour of a child to talk. The first essay seem* 

 not to possess the slightest rudiments of the fu- 

 ture song; but, as the hird advances in age and 

 strength, it is not difficult to perceive what it is 

 aiming at. A sparrow, taken from the nest when 

 very young, and placed near a linnet and gold- 

 finch, (though in a wild state it would only have 

 chirped,) adopted a song that was a mixture 

 of the notes of these two. Three nestling lin- 

 nets were educated, one under a sky-lark, ano- 

 iher under a woodlark, and the third under a 

 tit-lark; and, instead of the song peculiar to 

 their own species, they adhered invariably to 

 that of their respective instructors. A linnet, 

 taken from the nest when but two or three days 

 old, and brought up in the house of an apothe- 

 cary, at Kensington, from want of other sounds 

 to imitate, almost articulated the words " pretty 

 boy;" as well as some other short sentences; but 

 its owner said, that it had neither the note nor 

 the call of any bird whatever. 



These, and a variety of other facts, seem to 

 prove, that birds have no innate notes, but that, 

 like mankind, they adopt the language of those 

 to whose care they are committed at birth. It 

 may, however, seem somewhat unaccountable, 

 from these observations, why, in a wild state, 

 they adhere so steadily to the song of their own 

 species, when so many others are to be heard 

 around them. This arises from the attention 

 paid by the nestling to the instructions of it* 



