108 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



[July, 1888. 



Corrrspontientf. 



Brief communicatioriH upon eubjects of scientific interest 

 will be welcomed from any guarter. The editors do not neces- 

 sarily indorse all views and statements presented by their cor- 

 respondents- 



"HOW BIRDS LEARN TO SING" 



was a proposition disposed of, in your May issue, 

 by the answer, ^'■imitation." That many birds do 

 imitate, and have learned notes that do not belong 

 to their class or species, I admit; but it is an axiom 

 in natural history that each species is discernable 

 by their form, color, and note, and a still more 

 apparent truth that eccentric notes have never 

 been known to have been transmitted by any par- 

 ticular species to its rearing young. 



Eight or ten phenomenal cases never prove the 

 rule, no more than meteoric stars establish the 

 course of the planets. 



On Washington Street, near Summer, a lovely 

 canary may be found who whistles " Yankee 

 Doodle " complete, just as he was taught by his 

 patient mistress. Other canaries who had the 

 same opportunity, failed to learn this specialty, 

 while all sing the uniform song of the canary. 



" Young birds will never sing the song peculiar 

 to their tribe if they have never heard it " is a bold 

 assertion of your correspondent, in which he es- 

 tablishes, by admission, that birds have a ^'song 

 peculiar to their tribe." If that is admitted, then 

 some birds must have minds or instincts. If minds, 

 then, as a mental effort, they select the song of those 

 of like feather designedly, to keep up the family 

 relation. If not, then it must be by instinct. Let 

 us see what is the prevailing trait. Every lady who 

 raises canaries — and there are thousands — will 

 tell you that, as soon as the female is mated, she is 

 removed from the male. The songless mother 

 hatches her young, and ushers the little birdlings 

 into song-life self-depeiident. In a majority of 

 instances the young are brought up entirely apart 

 from any singer. Soon their musical characteris- 

 tics are developed, and instinct comes to their aid 

 with tVie " song their fathers sang." 



Nearly fifty years ago I assisted in raising a nest 

 each of robins, brown thrashers, yellow-birds, and 

 bobolinks. All came to be singers. Some were 

 shorter-lived than others. No one of them ever 

 had " the opportunity of hearing the song peculiar to 

 their species." 



In a few months, amid the busy hum of active 

 business-life, they began to sing. The robin was 

 first, and his notes were exactly like the " noble 

 John " who welcomes the gray dawn in the grand 

 old elm near my dwelling. The thrashers were 

 slower in time ; but from the pianissimo rendered 

 at rehearsal, while hammering a nut in the bottom 

 of the cage, they daily grew into the fortissimo, 

 rolling forth their notes, and vieing in originality 

 with their polyglot brothers who honor the sunny 

 South, having a more extensive name, but no better 

 song. 



The same was true of the yellow-birds and bob- 

 olinks distinctive species notes, — instinctively ren- 

 dered while surrounded by other songsters, — sing- 

 ing thus instinctive, and yet purloining not a note 

 from those about them. 



Birds, as a class, are not imitators, but instinctive 

 originators. Were it not so, the notes of the robin, 

 wren, blue-bird, yellow-bird, black-bird, oriole, and 

 sparrow, all of whom abide within a stone's throw 

 of my dwelling, would, in a mingled jargon, be so 

 presented to the ears of the growing birdling as 

 to produce a musical pandemonium, unendurable to 

 themselves. 



Where does the mocking-bird raised in the 

 North, in a worse than orphan-asylum, away from 



all birds of even a kindred note, get his melodious 

 chorals, if not from instinct? 



Five pairs of muscles stretch or relax the vocal 

 chords attached to the lower larynx, which consti- 

 tute the organ of song, differing in each species. 

 The robin cannot sing like the mocking-bird, nor 

 like the canary or goldfinch; and yet by chance, as 

 some do, they learn a note not instinctively their 

 own. I knew of no record that declares that the 

 offspring ever learned the alien notes of its father, 

 forgetful of its species. 



Birds sing by instinct; man is educated, as an 

 act of the mental powers : so that there can be no 

 similarity between a bird and a man, allliough 

 both are taken to France in their youth, at the 

 same age, when the bird sings the song of its 

 species, like the ever-present canary, and the man 

 learns only to talk French. 



Wm. Cahoone Greene. 



Boston, May 20. 



Your correspondent in the May number of the 

 Popular Science News says: " Young birds will 

 never sing the song peculiar to their tribe if they 

 have never heard it," etc. Certainly a mistake. 

 I have now in my office one of the best and most 

 varied singers of the canary tribe. He is now 

 nearly three years old, and I know to a certainty he 

 never heard one of his tribe sing until he was two 

 years old, and at that age he was about as noisy 

 and varied a singer as I ever heard. I bought his 

 mother when she was incubating, and took her far 

 out in the country, away from nearly all kinds of 

 birds. She never sang, merely chirped; but her 

 son in the cage above me is a " clipper," and no 

 mistake. Does your correspondent mean to say 

 that a cockerel hatched in an incubator away in 

 the woods will not crow, and in the absence of 

 one of his tribe would quack like a duck if he 

 had such a teacher? 



Dr. C. H. Merrick. 



DwAMisH, 'Washington Teb. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 



Letters of inquiry should enclose a two-cent stamp, 

 as well as the name and address of the writer, which 

 will not be published. 



Questions regarding the treatment of diseases can- 

 not be answered in this column. 



O. R. R., Massachtisetts. — Is tlie water purer in an 

 open well than in one that Is closed? and is it a benefit 

 to water to be agitated in the air, so that it may absorb 

 some of it? 



Answer. — Wells should be ventilated, as the water 

 is thereby kept fresh and free from bad odor. The 

 absorption of air by water renders it pleasanter to the 

 taste, and purifies it to some extent; but the effect is 

 not a very marked one. 



Inquirer. — Why will dynamite explode by percus- 

 sion, and not by contact with flame? 



Answer. — The philosophy of the explosion of dyna- 

 mite and other nitro-glycerine compounds is not well 

 understood; but it is supposed that the explosion of 

 the fulminate which is used as an agent of percussion, 

 causes the molecules of the nitro-glycerine to vibrate 

 at such a rate as to cause an instantaneous decom- 

 position throughout the mass. The principle is the 

 same as when a musical note of a certain pitch causes 

 a piano-string or bell tuned to the same pitch to 

 vibrate in unison with it. 



W. W., Pennsylvania. — Is iron-ore reduced to the 

 metal simply by the heat of the hlast-furnace, or is 

 there some chemical change involved? 



Answer. — Many people suppose that the iron is 

 simply melted out of the ore, but this is a mistake. 

 The ore is usually an oxide of iron, which, when heated 

 with tlie carbon of the coal, gives up its oxygen, form- 

 ing carbonic dioxide and metallic iron. The actual 

 reactions taking place in the furnace are more com- 

 plicated than this, which only represents the general 

 principle of the process. 



E. W. S., 0/»io. — We do not consider galvanized 

 iron to be a safe material for water-pipes. Zinc is a 



metal which is readily attacked and dissolved by cer- 

 tain waters, forming unwholesome and poisonous 

 salts. 



C, St. Louis. (1) Palladium is a somewhat rare 

 metal resembling platinum. It cannot be magnetized, 

 and has been used to some extent as a substitute for 

 steel in watches which are likely to be exposed to 

 magnetic influence. (2) Lithium is the lighest metal 

 known. It has the specific gravity of 0.59. Aluminum 

 is the lighest common metal, with a specific gravity 

 of 2.fi7. (3) The diamond cannot be fused, but can 

 readily be burned in an atmosphere of oxygen gas. 

 The first recorded experiment of this sort was made 

 by Lavoisier in 1772, although the fact was known 

 before. 



LITERARY NOTES. 



The Finulamental Principles of Chemistry. By Robert 



Galloway. Published by Longmans, Green & Co., 



New York. Price SL75. 



The author in this work has made a new departure 

 from tlie usual methods of teaching chemistry. Great 

 attention is given to the practical and experimental 

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 his work. The first part of the work is devoted to a 

 course in physics, a science which is inseparably con- 

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 approve of the scheme of this work, and can recom- 

 mend it to the attention of instructors. 



The same firm has also issued Part II. of TJie Old 

 and Nao Astronomy, by Professor Proctor. This part 

 treats of the shape of the earth and tlie movements of 

 the lieavenly bodies. The parts already published 

 show that the complete work will be a most valuable 

 and important one; and, as it is issued in separate 

 monthly parts, subscribers can obtain it without put- 

 ting themselves to unusual expense. 



Composition and Rhetoric. By William Williams, B.A. 



Published by D. C. Heath & Co., Boston. 



This excellent work is designed for a text-book for 

 schools. It is extremely practical, and proceeds on the 

 method of laying down a few principles at a time, and 

 then illustrating them with exercises, so that the pupil 

 may master tlieir practical application, and learn, not 

 only to write, but to speak, correctly. 



The same firm publish the Nature Readers, most de- 

 lightful little books describing the habits of birds, 

 insects, and other animals in a manner calculated to 

 interest and entertain the youngest readers; and the 

 Old South Leaflets, a series of essays on political sub- 

 jects, equally valuable, but adapted to more advanced 

 scholars. 



Turning-Lathes. By James Lukin. E. &. F. N. Spon, 



publishers, Ne%v York. Price $1.00. 



The rapid growth of the system of manual training 

 and trade schools, especially abroad, has led to the 

 creation of a class of literature whicli now fully covers 

 the methods of most of the trades. The present vol- 

 ume belongs to this class, and, in our judgment, will 

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 The several types of lathes, both for wood and metal 

 turning, and their parts in detail, are fully described 

 and illustrated, as also are tlie various operations of 

 tlie latheman's art. Amateur turners will find in it 

 many useful hints. * 



» 



P. Blakiston, Son & Co. of Philadelphia have pub- 

 lished a new edition of Tanner's Memoranda of Poisons 

 (price 7.5 cents), which every physician will find a most 

 useful book for reference. All known poisons and 

 their mode of action are described, and the antiilotes 

 for each are given in full, and their manner of applica- 

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 vice. 



The Woman's World is an interesting monthly maga- 

 zine published by Cas.sell & Co. of New York at Jf3.50 

 a year, and particularly devoted to tlie interests of tlie 

 feminine portion of humanity. The July number at 

 hand contains many interesting articles by prominent 

 lady writers, and the table of contents comprises a 

 variety of subjects which will suit the most fastidious. 



Pamphlets, etc , received: World-English, a New 

 Universal Language, br A. Melville Bell (jnice 25 cents, 

 of N. D. C. Hodges, '47 Lafayette Place, New York); 

 A Messenger of lAyht and Index to Gospel Truth, by E. 

 Miller, M.D., Kingston, Mo.; The .Tournal of the Col- 

 lege of Science of the Imperial University at Tokyo, 

 Japan; Discovery of the Origin of the Name of America, 

 by Thomas de St. Brls; Improvements in the Manufac- 

 ture of Sulphuric Avid, by F. W. Chappell; Water and 

 its Impurities, by E. W.Moore, M.D;, San Francisco; 

 An Indictment of Darwin, by Oswald Dawson; and the 

 Annual Reports of the Hartford Retreat for the Insane 

 and the Boston Washingtonian Home, 



