CHATS AND WEENS. 147 



it seemed, a point several yards distant. Vary my exper- 

 iments as I would, it mattered not : the bird was thor- 

 oughly conscious of its ventriloquial power, and trusted 

 far more to it than to flight to avoid and mislead any 

 intruder. 



How came this bird to possess so unusual a power ? 

 This I shall leave for others to determine, with this one 

 suggestion : having closely observed a pair of these birds 

 during the entire summer, I discovered that the habit is 

 eminently useful to them, and is, I think, possessed by 

 the male only, though upon this point I am not positively 

 certain. 



When it is recollected that many of our birds nota- 

 bly the mocking-bird and cat-bird mimic not only the 

 notes of other songsters, but sounds of almost every de- 

 scription, and that perhaps all gregarious birds post senti- 

 nels to sound alarm on the approach of an enemy, it is 

 evident that all the vocal powers of birds are not brought 

 into play simply for their own satisfaction or for that of 

 their mates; for there is a wide difference between a 

 bird's song and its ordinary chirping and twittering. 

 During the lapse of ages they have learned, through ex- 

 perience, something of the laws of sound, and they know 

 fully as well as man does that certain notes can be heard 

 at a greater distance than others. N This is shown by the 

 fact that birds, when giving an alarm-cry, utter the note 

 with a penetrating shrillness, not common in any of their 

 ordinary chirps or song. This knowledge of one of the 

 properties of sound, simple as it is, is the starting-point 

 in the acquirement of the power of mimicry, which is 

 the intermediate stage between ordinary vocal utterances, 

 including songs, and that ventriloquial power which we 

 have seen is possessed in great perfection by the chat. 



Now, as this bird imitates very many sounds, it seems 



