SEXUAL SELECTION 481 



males of the capercailzie sometimes hold their Balzen or 

 hJcs at the usual place of assemblage during the autumn." 

 Hence it is not at all surprising that male birds should con- 

 tinue singing for their own amusement after the season for 

 oourtship is over. 



As shown in a previous chapter, singing is to a certain 

 extent an art, and is much improved by practice. Birds 

 can be taught various tunes, and even the unmelodious 

 sparrow has learned to sing like a linnet. They acquire 

 the song of their foster parents,'* and sometimes that of 

 their neighbors." All the common songsters belong to the 

 Order of Insessores, and their vocal organs are much more 

 complex than those of most other birds; yet it is a singular 

 fact that some of the Insessores, such as ravens, crows, and 

 magpies, possess the proper apparatus," though they never 

 sing, and do not naturally modulate their voices to any 

 great extent. Hunter asserts'* that with the true songsters 

 the muscles of the larynx are stronger in the males than 

 in the females; but with this slight exception there is no 

 difference in the vocal organs of the two sexes, although 

 the males of most species sing so much better and more 

 continuously than the females. 



It is remarkable that only small birds properly sing. 

 The Australian genus Menura, however, must be excepted; 

 for the Menura Alberti, which is about the size of a half- 

 grown turkey, not only mocks other birds, but "its own 

 whistle is exceedingly beautiful and varied." The males 

 congregate and form '^''corroborying places," where they 

 sing, raising and spreading their tails like peacocks, and 

 drooping their wings." It is also remarkable that birds 



^ L. Lloyd, "Game Birds of Sweden," 1867, p. 26. 



^ Barrington, ibid., p. 264. Beohatein, ibid., s. 5. 



^ Bureau de la MaHe gives a curious instance ("Annates des So, Nat.," 3d 

 series, Zoolog., torn. x. p. 118) of some wild blackbirds in his garden in Paris 

 which naturally learned a republican air from a caged bird. 



^ Bishop, in "Todd's Cyclop, of Anat. aad Phys." vol. iv. p. 1496. 



=8 As stated by Barrington in "Philosoph. Transact.," 1773, p. 262. 



'^ Gould, "Handbook to the Birds of Australia," vol. i., 1865, pp. 308-SlOl 

 See also Mr. T. W. Wood in the "Student," April, 1870, p. 126. 



