SEXUAL SELECTION 479 



and who was so good a performer that he cost ten guineas; 

 when this bird was first introduced into a room where other 

 birds were kept and he began to sing, all the others, consist- 

 ing of about twenty linnets and canaries, ranged themselves 

 on the nearest side of their cages, and listened with the 

 greatest interest to the new performer. Many naturalists 

 believe that the singing of birds is almost exclusively "the 

 effect of rivalry and emulation," and not for the sake of 

 charming their mates. This was the opinion of Dainea 

 Barrington and White of Selborne, who both especially 

 attended to this subject." Barrington, however, admits 

 that "superiority in song gives to birds an amazing ascen- 

 dency over others, as is well known to bird-catchers." 



It is certain that there is an intense degree of rivalry 

 between the males in their singing. Bird-fanciers match 

 their birds to see which will sing longest; and I was told 

 by Mr. Yarrell that a first-rate bird will sometimes sing till 

 he drops down almost dead, or, according to Bechstein,'" 

 quite dead from rupturing a vessel in the lungs. Whatever 

 the cause may be, male birds, as I hear from Mr. Weir, 

 often die suddenly during the season of song. That the 

 habit of singing is sometimes quite independent of love is 

 clear, for a sterile, hybrid canary-bird has been described" 

 as singing while viewing itself in a mirror, and then dashing 

 at its own image; it likewise attacked with fury a female 

 canary when put into the same cage. The jealousy excited 

 by the act of singing is constantly taken advantage of by 

 bird-catchers; a male, in good song, is hidden and pro- 

 tected, while a staffed bird, surrounded by limed twigs, is 

 exposed to view. In this manner, as Mr. Weir informs 

 me, a man has in the course of a single day caught fifty, 

 and in one instance seventy, male chaffinches. The power 

 and incliaatioQ to sing differ so greatly with birds that, 



» "Philosophical Traneactiona," 1773, p. 263. White's "Natural Histoiy 

 of Selborne," 1825, vol. i. p. 246. 



*> "Natnrgesoh. der Stubenvogel," 1840, s. 262. 

 8> Mr. Bold, "Zoologist," 1843-1844, p. 669. 



