INTRODUCTION. xxxv 



after chickens ! " To which Poll pertinently answered, " Yes, 

 /, — and I know well enough how to do it; " clucking at the 

 same instant in the manner of a calling brood-hen. 



The docility of birds in catching and expressing sounds 

 depends, of course, upon the perfection of their voice and 

 hearing, — assisted also by no inconsiderable power of memory. 

 The imitative actions and passiveness of some small birds, such 

 as Goldfinches, Linnets, and Canaries, are, however, quite as 

 curious as their expression of sounds. A Sieur Roman exhib- 

 ited in England some of these birds, one of which simulated 

 death, and was held up by the tail or claw without showing any 

 active signs of hfe. A second balanced itself on the head, 

 with its claws in the air. A third imitated a milkmaid going to 

 market, with pails on its shoulders. A fourth mimicked a 

 Venetian girl looking out at a window. A fifth acted the 

 soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel. The sixth was a 

 cannonier, with a cap on its head, a firelock on its shoulder, 

 and with a match in its claw discharged a small cannon. The 

 same bird also acted as if wounded, was wheeled in a little 

 barrow, as it were to the hospital ; after which it flew away 

 before the company. The seventh turned a kind of windmill ; 

 and the last bird stood amidst a discharge of small fireworks, 

 without showing any sign of fear. 



A similar exhibition, in which twenty-four Canary birds 

 were the actors, was also shown in I^ondon in 1820, by a 

 Frenchman named Dujon ; one of these suffered itself to be 

 shot at, and falling down, as if dead, was put into a little 

 wheelbarrow and conveyed away by one of its comrades. 



The docility of the Canary and Goldfinch is thus, by dint of 

 severe education, put in fair competition with that of the dog ; 

 and we' cannot deny to the feathered creation a share of that 

 kind of rational intelligence exhibited by some of our sagacious 

 quadrupeds, — an incipient knowledge of cause and effect far 

 removed from the unimprovable and unchangeable destinies of 

 instinct. Nature probably delights less in producing such 

 animated machines than we are apt to suppose ; and amidst 

 the mutability of circumstances by which almost every animated 



