72 ORGANS OF VOICE. 



tuberance on its head, which, when inflated with air, 

 stands up like a horn, is, in some way, the cause ; 

 but the Goat-suckers, in all probability, are indebted 

 to their peculiar width of mouth and throat for this 

 power of voice ; for many other birds, in uttering 

 loud notes, are observed to puff and swell out their 

 throats in a very extraordinary manner. For in- 

 stance, our little summer visitant and sweet songster, 

 the Blackcap, when warbling forth his finest notes, 

 distends its throat in a wonderful degree; and those 

 who have chanced to see a Brown Owl in the act of 

 hooting, will have noticed, that they swell up their 

 throats to the size of a pigeon's egg. And persons, 

 who have fine ears for music, have ascertained, by 

 comparing their notes with a pitch-pipe, that their 

 variations are according to certain rules ; most of 

 them hooting in B flat, though some went almost 

 half a note below A. This strain upon the throat 

 is sometimes carried to a pitch which endangers the 

 bird's life. The bird-fanciers in London, who are 

 in the habit of increasing the singing powers of birds 

 to the utmost, by training them by high feeding, 

 hot temperature of the rooms in which they are 

 kept, and forced moulting, will often match one 

 favourite Goldfinch against another. They are 

 put in small cages, with wooden backs, and placed 

 near to, but so that they cannot see, each other : 

 they will then raise their shrill voices, and continue 

 their vocal contest till one frequently drops off its 

 perch, perfectly exhausted, and dies on the spot. 

 This will even happen sometimes to birds in a wild 

 state. In the garden of a gentleman in Sussex, a 

 Thrush had, for some time, perched itself on a par- 



