APPENDIX. 137 
GENESIS oF Brrp Sone. — Contin. 
out of sight in the foliage; then, in an access of rapture, soaring vertically 
to a height of a hundred feet, with measured wing-beats, like those of a 
heron; or mounting suddenly in a wild, hurried zigzag, then slowly 
circling downward, to sit at last with tail outspread fanwise, and vans 
glistening white in the sunshine, expanded and vibrating, or waved lan- 
guidly up and down with a motion like that of some broad-winged butter- 
fly at rest on a flower.” — Hudson, W. H.: Music and dancing in Nature. 
(Longman’s Mag., vol. xv., 1890, pp. 597-610.) 
See Darwin, C.: The Descent of Man (N. Y., 1872), vol. ii. pp. 65-68. — 
Fish, E. E.: Dancing Gander. (Pop. Sci. Mo. vol. xxv., 1884, pp. 715-716.) 
— Nutting, C. C.: Chiroxiphea linearis, Bp. (U.S. Nat. Mus. Proceedings, 
vol. vi., 1883, pp. 384-385.) — Some Western Birds (cranes), Putnam’s 
Mo., vol. iv., 1854, p. 80.— Wallace, A. R.: (Birds of Paradise) The 
Malay Archipelago, pp. 466-467. 
“ Between these two opposing tendencies, one urging to variation, the 
other to permanence (for Nature herself is half radical, half conservative), 
the language of birds has grown from rude beginnings to its present 
beautiful diversity ; and whoever lives a century of millenniums hence 
will listen to music such as we in this day can only dream of. Inap- 
preciably but ceaselessly the work goes on.! Here and there is born 
a master-singer, a feathered genius,2 and every generation makes its 
1 Such was the author’s belief. His words are “ The end is not yet.” 
2 “Died, at the house of Colonel O’Kelly, in Half-moon Street, Piccadilly, 
his wonderful parrot, who had been in his family thirty years, having been 
purchased at Bristol out of a West India ship. It sang, with the greatest 
clearness and precision, Psalm CIV., ‘The Banks of the Dee,’ ‘God save 
the King,’ and other favorite songs; and, if it blundered in any one, 
instantly began again, till it had the tune complete. One hundred guineas 
had been refused for it in London.” — Gentleman’s Mag,, pt. 2, vol. Lxxii., 
1802, p. 967. (Another account, Gentleman’s Mag., pt. 2, vol. lvii., 1787, p. 
1197.) 
But long before the day of this genius, Rome could boast of a lark 
that, after singing divinely, would pronounce the names of the saints 
in most musical Italian, carrying his repertoire of sweet words up to 
fairly astonishing numbers. Father Kircher — who, by the way, has not 
a little valuable matter hid away in the hard shell of his old Latin — was 
overcome with wonder at the performance of this bird. He could hardly 
be persuaded that he was not listening to a human voice, and was con- 
vinced without further argument that all birds with melodious throats 
might not only sing the music, but speak the language, of men. 
