October 4, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



523 



Is it a matter of inheritance ? Or does each 

 robin learn to sing ? Is it inherent in the 

 species or is this song of the robin a matter 

 of education ? 



A. R. Wallace and Lloyd Morgan espe- 

 cially have advanced hypotheses to account 

 for the matter of call notes and song, and 

 Mr. Morgan's work is based on many care- 

 ful experiments that are set forth in his book, 

 'Habit and Instinct.' But, so far, I am 

 not aware of any prolonged or detailed ac- 

 count of the study of this factor, as it de- 

 velops with, and extends through, the life 

 of a given individual, nor has a second 

 generation been carefully watched. 



The following experiment, though imper- 

 fect and by no means as exhaustive as 

 could be desired, seems, however, worthy 

 of record, as from it certain conclusions 

 may be drawn. The notes accumulated 

 extend over a period of nearly five years 

 and are briefly as follows : 



On July 7, 1895, I took from a maple 

 tree at Annisquam, Massachusetts, a nest 

 of the Baltimore oriole. {Icterus galbula), 

 which contained three very young birds. 

 They were quite naked and showed no signs 

 of wing or tail feathers. They appeared to 

 be about five days old. As a record to 

 refer to, one was killed and preserved in 

 alcohol. The other two were carefully 

 reared by hand and throve well. 



So far as I know, they did not hear, after 

 coming into my possession, any birds sing, 

 nor did any person whistle or sing to 

 them. 



At the age of between three and four 

 weeks they were able to feed and care for 

 themselves. They began then to fly from 

 place to place about the room, and it became 

 necessary to confine them in a cage. How- 

 ever, they were allowed the larger liberty 

 of the sitting room for a portion of each 

 day and were very tame and familiar, for a 

 long period calling for food in the character- 

 istic oriole way and begging with drooping 



fluttering wings of any one who came into 

 the room, 



By August 1 they were fully fledged 

 and the downy first plumage of the head 

 and body began to be replaced by the com- 

 pact and finished plumage of the first 

 autumn. The wing and tail feathers were, 

 however, not moulted at this time. 



During the first week in October, the 

 birds were taken by me to Boston. Here I 

 lived in rooms on the upper floor of a four- 

 story house where there were no other 

 birds in confinement, so that no song of 

 any kind was heard by the birds while at 

 this place. 



Now I began to appreciate that both were 

 female birds and also noted great tempera- 

 mental diflerences in the two. One was 

 timid, and the other taking advantage of 

 this characteristic, scolded and chased the 

 timid bird both in the cage and when at 

 large in the room. So by name I began to 

 distinguish them as Driver and Timid, 

 which last soon became Timmy, a name 

 always associated in my mind with Balti- 

 more orioles. 



At this time they had a single call note 

 very like that of wild birds, but with a 

 slightly different quality difficult to define, 

 more abrupt, musical and much louder. 

 They also had the peculiar rattling chatter 

 associated with orioles . These were all their 

 notes and were uttered rarely, the infant 

 appeal so prevalent during the first four 

 weeks of their lives having disappeared 

 with their babyhood. 



During the next few months their lives 

 had no marked events. Each day they 

 spent much time out of the cage at large in 

 the room. Threads interested them, and 

 hours were spent by the two birds in sew- 

 ing, for I can use no other word, threads 

 and strings into the wire bars of the cage 

 they lived in. Without any semblance of 

 weaving a nest or attempting to shape one, 

 the birds simply tied and wove the threads 



