VOL. LXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 443 



first essay does not seem to have the least rudiments of the future song; but as 

 the bird grows older and stronger, one may begin to perceive what the nestling 

 is aiming at. While the scholar is thus endeavouring to form his song, when 

 he is once sure of a passage, he commonly raises his tone, which he drops again 

 when he is not equal to what he is attempting; just as a singer raises his voice, 

 when he not only recollects certain parts of a tune with precision, but knows 

 that he can execute them. What the nestling is not thus thoroughly master of, 

 he hurries over, lowering his tone, as if he did not wish to be heard, and could 

 not yet satisfy himself A young bird commonly continues to record for 10 or 

 1 1 months, when he is able to execute every part of his song, which afterwards 

 continues fixed, and is scarcely ever altered. When the bird is thus become 

 perfect in his lesson, he is said to sing his song round, or in all its varieties of 

 passages, which he connects together, and executes without a pause. 



Notes in birds are no more innate, than language is in man, and depend en- 

 tirely on the master under which they are bred, as far as their organs will enable 

 them to imitate the sounds which they have frequent opportunities of hearing. 

 Mr. B. educated nestling linnets under the 3 best singing larks, the skylark, 

 woodlark, and titlark, every one of which, instead of the linnet's song, adhered 

 entirely to that of their respective instructors. When the note of the titlark- 

 linnet was thoroughly fixed, he hung the bird in a room with 2 common linnets, 

 for a quarter of a year, which were full in song; the titlark-linnet, however, did 

 not borrow any passages from the linnet's song, but adhered stedfastly to that of 

 the titlark. Having some curiosity to find out whether a European nestling 

 would equally learn the note of an African bird, he educated a young linnet 

 under a vengolina, which imitated its African master so exactly, without any 

 mixture of the linnet song, that it was impossible to distinguish the one from 

 the other. This vengolina linnet was absolutely perfect, without ever uttering a 

 single note by which it could have been known to be a linnet. In some of his 

 other experiments, however, the nestling linnet retained the call of its own spe- 

 cies, or what the bird-catchers term the linnet's chuckle, from some resemblance 

 to that word when pronounced. 



Having before stated, that all his nestling linnets were 3 weeks old when taken 

 from the nest; and by that time they frequently learn their own call from the 

 parent birds, which consists of only a single note. To be certain therefore, that 

 a nestling will not have even the call of its species, it should be taken from the 

 nest when only a day or two old; because, though nestlings cannot see till the 

 7th day, yet they can hear from the instant they are hatched, and probably, from 

 that circumstance, attend to sounds more than they do afterwards, especially as 

 the call of the parents announces the arrival of their food. Mr. B. owns that 

 he is not equal himself, nor can he procure any person to take the trouble of 



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