300 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 



I believe tliat the notion first occurred to me the first 

 day I ever landed in Norway. This was at Christiansand 

 in May, 1855, and I was immediately struck with the 

 songs of the Redstarts and Wheatears sounding 

 differently from those I had been hearing only a few 

 days before at home, I thought, however, that some of 

 the difference might be due to rocky localities in which 

 I heard the Norwegian birds, and I am now not sure 

 that in some cases this may not have something to do 

 with the difference in tone, especially if the sound does 

 not strike one's ear directly but is reflected from stones 

 or rocks. 



Still I am quite inclined to believe that part of the 

 difference at least is actually local and I see no reason 

 why the notes should not vary. The case of your 

 particularly full-voiced Redwing might be an individual 

 peculiarity, for every one must have observed what a 

 difference there is between the song of one Song-Thrush 

 and another. I should say that I never heard two sing 

 exactly alike, and it is easy to recognise the same bird 

 day after day, not to say season after season. Of all 

 our birds this difference is perhaps most easily noticed 

 in the Song-Thrush on account of its loud notes and the 

 abundance and familiarity of the species ; but I have 

 noticed it nearly as conspicuously in the Nightingale and 

 also decidedly with Skylark and Blackbird, 1 believe 

 also in the Chaffinch, Willow- Wren and some others. 

 If then there be, as there certainly is, this individual 

 difference, it is not unnatural to suppose that it may be 

 (like other individual differences) hereditary, and as 

 there must in the majority of cases be greater con- 

 sanguinity between (say) the Redstarts and Wheatears of 

 Christiansand than between the same birds in Suffolk 

 the matter seems capable of easy explanation. An ex- 

 tension of the principle will to some degree suggest a 

 reasonable theory of the " confusion of tongues " with- 

 out a Tower of Babel ! 



