106 BIEDS 



pitched bells. I have never heard quite the same tone 



elsewhere. 



EICHABD WILLIAMS. 



June 1, 1901. 



BLACKBIRD MIMES 



The faculty of imitating sounds and songs not their 

 own, must be more frequent in blackbirds than is generally 

 supposed. I remember in the Spring of 1879, in the 

 little copse on the side of the Frauenberg at Fulda, hear- 

 ing several blackbirds sing a fragment of the well-known 

 " Du bist verruckt mein kind." They all sang the same 

 first few notes, breaking off at exactly the same quavering, 

 hesitating sound, beginning over and over again. I tried 

 to find out how they had acquired this addition to their 

 usual natural repertoire, but could not, until an old lady 

 explained to me that the blackbirds on the Frauenberg 

 must have learnt the air from a tame bird belonging to 

 a soldier, which had been taught by him to warble this 

 tune. I saw this blackbird in a cage hanging over the 

 cottage door, but I did not hear it sing. I have observed 

 another instance of this faculty of acquisition this year 

 in the Pare de Montsouris in Paris. We have been in- 

 terested in noticing one particularly good-voiced bird 

 singing quite differently from his fellows. It seemed 

 sometimes as we listened in the quiet of the early dawn 

 or late evening as if the birds were trying to invent a 

 new song; it may be he was only imitating. Anyhow, 

 our attention was called to the performance of this par- 

 ticular bird by the difference from the usual blackbird's 

 song. 



JEANNE E. SCHMAIL. 



August 4, 1900. 



NOTE. Other correspondents send accounts of a 

 starling borrowing the tune whistled by a boy and a 

 captive raven a terrier's bark and whine. Though I 

 have discussed mimicry elsewhere, I may repeat myself 



