40 ON THE NOTES OF BIRDS. 
were as decidedly characteristic as its notes ; and I 
am the more particular in noticing this latter circum- 
stance, because the peculiar habits of birds are quite 
as difficult to account for as the origin of their 
songs*. Thus it appears from this satisfactory ex- 
periment, which was conducted with the utmost care, 
that, contrary to Mr. Barrington’s opinion, the notes 
of birds, which probably consist of those sounds that 
their vocal organs are best adapted to produce, are 
perfectly instinctive t. 
* Several birds sing in the night, and some warble as they fly. 
The Titlark uses particular notes in ascending and descending, 
and the song of the Whitethroat is accompanied with strange 
gesticulations. Larks and Wagtails run, Finches and Buntings 
hop, nearly the whole of the Gallinaceous and Pie tribes and 
many species of Water-fowl walk, and Woodpeckers cimb. The 
Sparrow,.Sky-Lark, and most of the Galline are pulveratrices ; 
and the Kestril, when it hovers, may be distinguished from 
every other British Falcon by the fanning-motion of its wings. 
Peculiarities in the modes of flight and nidification of various 
species are equally remarkable and worthy of notice; but, as 
they are foreign to the present subject, I shall not now dilate 
upon them. 
+ Since writing the above, I have met with the following 
general assertion in the ‘ Physiognomical System of Drs. Gall 
and Spurzheim,’ by J. G. Spurzheim, M.D., second edition, pp. 
194, 195 :—“ Singing birds, moreover, which have been hatched 
by strange females, sing naturally, and without any instruction, 
the song of their species as soon as their internal organization is 
active. Hence the males of every species preserve their natural 
song, though they have been brought up in the society of indivi- 
duals of a different kind.” This inference, I have been recently 
