June 24, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



957 



quiet my mother sitting in the drawing room 

 can say quite softly, ' I believe he is coming,' 

 when the dog, two or three rooms distant and 

 apparently asleep, will start up and run from 

 window to window, looking up and down the 

 street. He will do the same on any other 

 day and for any individual, but with some 

 variation in the rapidity of his response. I 

 record these acts merely to show that while 

 they might superficially appear to be the re- 

 sult of reasoning processes, they are doubtless 

 only instances of memory and the association 

 of spoken words with the objects or acts. 



Abthur W. Weysse. 

 Boston, Massachusetts. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 



THE INHERITANCE OF SONG IN PASSERINE BIRDS. 

 REMARKS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF SONG IN THE 

 ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK, ZAMELODIA LUDO- 

 VICIANA (lINNjEUS), AND THE MEADOW- 

 LARK, STURNELLA MAGNA (lINN^US). 



I AM tempted to elaborate at some length the 

 life history of two broods of young birds that 

 were raised in May and June, 1903, that 

 definite data may be before the reader and 

 student, as to exactly what has occurred for 

 the past year with the individuals under ob- 

 servation. 



On the Tth of June, 1903, I found a nest 

 of rose-breasted grosbeaks in a swamp on the 

 Millstone Eiver, near Princeton. At the time 

 of discovery the female was sitting, and pre- 

 sumably brooding new-laid eggs. She was not 

 disturbed, but as I did not know when incu- 

 bation had commenced, the locality was visited 

 and observations were made at intervals of 

 every other day, until on the 14th of the 

 month I was assured that the young had been 

 hatched. I was not then aware of the number 

 of fledglings composing the brood. It seems 

 worthy of record here that both parents took 

 part in incubation, though the male only as- 

 sumed such duty for brief periods, when the 

 hen bird went away, probably for exercise and 

 bathing, but not in quest of food. The male 

 constantly fed the female and was solicitous 

 in his care for her. 



On the 14th of the month the young were 

 hatched, and the parents shared the duties 



of brooding as they had shared the period of 

 incubation. On the 19th of the month, con- 

 cluding that the young were old enough for 

 the experiment in view, I secured the nest, in 

 which were a brood of three fledglings, and at 

 once had a water-color sketch made of the 

 young in the nest, as a record of their absolute 

 condition, so far as feathering and appearance 

 were concerned. Wliile not able to discrimi- 

 nate with certainty the differentiation in sex, 

 I was reasonably sure from the first that the 

 brood contained two young male birds and one 

 female. 



On the 20th another accurate water-color 

 sketch was made to record how these birds 

 had grown and developed, and on the 21st a 

 sketch of one of the birds, a male, for by this 

 time the sexes were easily distinguishable, 

 records his appearance from both a front and 

 a back view. 



These birds were carefully hand reared in 

 the nest, which they left on the twenty-first 

 inst., when about seven days old. Grosbeaks 

 of this kind are very precocious, and being 

 admirable climbers, they clamber about long 

 before they are able to fly, on the limbs and 

 tangle of vines which generally surround the 

 nest. 



It seems improbable that during the first 

 four days of their lives these birds acquired 

 much appreciation of the song of the male 

 parent, though he was constantly singing close 

 at hand. 



The three young birds were successfully 

 reared, and are alive at the present writing. 

 The brood consisted, as I had anticipated from 

 the first, of two males and one female. The 

 birds were kept together for the first six or 

 seven months of their lives, in a large cage, 

 and as I had no other male grosbeak in my 

 laboratory, it was, of course, quite impossible 

 that they should have learned anything of the 

 method of song of their ancestors, except such 

 impression as may have been gathered during 

 the first four days of their lives. All of them 

 went through the regular moult, and assumed 

 by September the characteristic dress of rose- 

 breasted grosbeaks at that season of the year. 

 In October the two young males both developed 

 a change in appearance which progressed slowly 



