34 ON THE NOTES OF BIRDS. 
they are bred, as far as their organs will enable them 
to imitate the sounds which they have frequent 
opportunities of hearing.” I am not aware, however, 
that he has brought forward a single fact from which 
such an inference can be fairly deduced. The main 
tendency of his researches is merely to prove (what 
was before perfectly well known) that some birds 
have very extraordinary powers of imitation, and may 
be taught, when young, to sing the notes of other 
species, whistle tunes, or even pronounce a few words. 
If his remarks on this subject contain any novelty, it 
is that birds so educated sometimes remain satisfied 
with these imitations, never blending any of their 
own notes with them; and, indeed, on this solitary 
circumstance, slight and inconclusive as it is, the en- 
tire weight of his argument is rested. The instances 
of the Goldfinch acquiring the song of the Wren, and 
of Mr. Matthews’s Linnet learning to articulate one 
or two short sentences, without having even the calls 
of their species, which this author seems to think so 
decisive, prove no more than his own experiments, 
which, as they were made for the most part with 
birds remarkable for their imitative powers, were cer- 
tainly by no means well adapted to his purpose. As 
for the Goldfinch, Mr. Barrington heard it only once, 
and then but for a short time; and that no depend- 
ence could be placed on any report of the people to 
whom it belonged, is evident from their supposing 
that it sang its own notes. These are circumstances 
