XIII INSTINCT AND REASON 331 
A. G. Butler? took a Skylark from the nest which 
“sang its own wild song, but introduced into it the 
song of the Persian Bulbul.” “ Chaffinches,” he says, 
“unless absolutely isolated, readily pick up the wild 
song, but if kept in the same room with Canaries, their 
song is lengthened (and thus improved), though not 
altered in character.” A Missel Thrush which he 
reared sang only two notes. A Blackbird sang the 
first line of “Villikins and his Dinah, and another 
the first line of a Psalm tune.” A Cock Starling 
“sane a jumble of sounds mixed with the guttural 
call-note of the Missel Thrush.” In fact a bird, if 
isolated, sings his own song, if any; as a rule the 
power that is in him requires awakening. If he 
hears one of his own species carolling, he is very 
soon able to imitate it. If he hears only other birds, 
he no doubt learns to imitate them, but the process is 
a comparatively long one, and often the foreign notes 
are only an addition to his own proper song, which 
can still be clearly made out. Many of the tame 
Thrushes in bird-fanciers’ shops have been taken 
early from the nest, and they sing the Thrush’s 
song. Sometimes they may have heard no bird 
sing, in which case their music must be due to pure 
instinct, or they may have heard the songs of many 
birds and singled out that of their own species. The 
Cuckoo is not taught by his sire. If instinct does 
not teach him, how does he know the one cry amid 
1 “ The Songs of Birds reared from the Nest ” in the Zoologist 
for 1892, p. 30. 
2 Romanes (Jlental Evolution in Animals, p. 227) says, 
“ The singing of birds is certainly instinctive,” 
