VOICE AND SONG. 5 



have any reference to the usual song, but of a kind of twit- 

 tering and chirping, intermixed with which, the well known 

 notes are now and then to be detected, given on every occasion 

 with increased perfectness and facility. The Chaffinch, before 

 recovering its song, chirps for eight weeks, though the period 

 varies slightly in individual birds ; and the warbling of the 

 Nightingale is indistinct for an equal length of time. This re- 

 cording, therefore, seems to indicate, not so much a failure of me- 

 mory, as, if I may so speak, a deterioration in the organs of voice. 



The reason why one bird sings better than another, may be 

 found in the different size and strength of the larynx ; whence 

 arises also the fact that females but rarely sing, as this organ is 

 much less fully developed in them than in the male. Thus too, 

 the Nightingale, distinguished above all birds by its clear, loud 

 and long song, differs also from all others in the greater strength 

 and size of its larynx. Like other organs, however, the larynx 

 may be very much strengthened by practice ; and, as we see 

 in the case of Chaffinches, Linnets, and Bullfinches, which have 

 been reared in the aviary, care, good food, and instruction, will 

 materially improve the song of many birds. 



I must not omit to mention in this place, a remark of BAB- 

 BINGTON'S (Philosophical Transactions, vol. Ixiii. 1773), namely, 

 that the so-called wild, or natural, song of a bird might be ar- 

 tificially improved by the admixture of another as, for instance, 

 by keeping Linnets, Sparrows, &c., in an aviary with cage-birds, 

 such as the Nightingale and Canary, and then setting them at 

 liberty. It is true enough that the songs of such birds im- 

 prove in the aviaiy ; for being well tended and fed, they have 

 nothing to think of but their song, and the effort to procure a 

 mate by its mean. And by putting them into an aviary con- 

 structed of wire, in the open air, and hanging near it, in cages, 

 unmated birds, of such species as the Nightingale and Canary, 

 which sing without intermission, it might be possible to teach 

 them a new and better song ; although that the same course of in- 

 struction could be given in the house, as HEEK GAINBOEG 

 affirms,* is a supposition against which all my own experience 

 militates. For it would be possible only in the case of birds 

 which pass the winter in the neighbourhood of our dwellings, 

 such as Sparrows, which are, however, among the least docile of 



* "How can we Improve the Song of our \\ild Birds?" Copen- 

 hagen, 1800. 



