Notes, ii. 17. 185 



In all probability he had never seen a living parrot ; for even as to the fact alluded to 

 in this passage, viz. the peculiar topgue, he plainly {H. A. viii. I2, 13) is speaking 

 at second-hand. 



4. " Small birds have a greater variety of notes and are more loquacious than 

 large birds" i^H. A. iv. 9, 14). "It is remarkable that only small birds properly 

 sing. The Australian genus Menura, however, must be excepted ; for the Menura 

 Albert!, which is about the size of a half-grown turkey, not only mocks other birds, 

 but its own whistle is exceedingly beautiful and varied" {^Darwin, Descent of Man, 



"• 55)- 



5. " With birds the voice serves to express various emotions, such as distress, fear, anger, 

 triumph, or mere happiness. It is apparently sometimes used to excite terror. . . . The 

 common domestic cock clucks to the hen, and the hen to the chickens, when a dainty 

 morsel is found. The hen when she has laid an egg repeats the same note very often, 

 and concludes with the sixth above, which she holds for a longer time, and thus expresses 

 her joy. Some social birds apparently call to each other for aid, and as they flit from 

 tree to tree, the flock is kept together by chirp answering chirp. During the nocturnal 

 migrations of geese and other water-fowl, sonorous clangs from the van may be heard 

 in the darkness over-head, answered by clangs in the rear. Certain cries serve as 

 danger-signals, which, as the sportsman knows to his cost, are well understood by the 

 same species and by others. The domestic cock crows, and the humming-bird chirps, 

 in triumph over a defeated rival. The true song however of most birds and various 

 strange cries are chiefly uttered during the breeding season, and serve as a charm, or 

 merely as a call-note to the other sex" (Darwin, Descent of Man, ii. 51). Whether 

 the voice of bitds, besides expressing emotions and serving to give signals, can also be 

 used by them for the communication of more complex intellectual ideas, is still an 

 open question. "J'incline a croire," however says M. Edwards [Lecons sur la 

 Phys. xiv. 118), "que chez quelques-uns de ces animaux, les Hirondelles par exemple, 

 une sorte de conversation pent s'etablir entre les differents individus d'une meme troupe." 

 In the Hist. An. (ix. 31, 2) it is stated that when a battle had occurred in a far-off 

 country, all the crows disappeared from Attica and the Peloponnese, as though informa- 

 tion of the banquet had been passed on from crow to crow. 



6. Cf. H. A. iv. 9. 



7. The tongue is not protrusible in Chelonia nor in crocodiles, but highly so in 

 serpents and in lizards. In serpents it is slit into two at the end, and deeply so in 

 lizards. It appears however to be an organ of exploration rather than of taste, for " les 

 serpents, tout en etant fort delicats sur la choix de leur nourriture, ne paraissent pas 

 avoir le sens du gout tres developpe ; car lorsque ces reptiles ont commence a ingurgiter 

 leur proie, on pent leur faire avaler d'autres aliments, sans qu'ils s'aper9oivent du 

 changement. II suffit d'attacher ces corps entre les pattes posterieures de I'animal qu'ils 

 sont en train d'avaler ; c'est une operation que Ton pratique souvent dans les menageries 

 erpetologiques par un motif d'economie " {^M. Edtvards, xi. 451)' 



8. "There is no tongue in this rudimentary fish [lancelet). ' That organ is often absent 

 or very small in the typical members of the class ; its basis, the glossohyal, when it 

 projects at all into the mouth, is rarely covered by integument so organised as to suggest 

 their being endowed with the sense of taste" {Owen, Vert. i. 411). See also Cuvier, 

 An. Comp. ii. 681. 



9. The tongue of the crocodile scarcely projects from the hning membrane in the floor 

 of the mouth. For a drawing of it, see R. Jones, An. Kingdom, p. 686. As to the jaw, 

 cf. iv. II, Note 20. 



