WAYS OF NATURE 
that has not yet been fully settled. That imitation 
has much to do with it admits of little doubt. The 
song of a bird is of secondary importance in its life. 
Birds reared in captivity, where they have never 
heard the songs of their kind, sing at the proper age, 
but not always the songs of their parents. Mr. Scott 
of Princeton proved this with his orioles. They sang 
at the proper age, but not the regular oriole song. 
I am told that there is a well-authenticated case of 
an English sparrow brought up with canaries that 
learned to sing like a canary.. “The Hon. Daines 
Barrington placed three young linnets with three 
different foster-parents, the skylark, the woodlark, 
and the titlark or meadow-pipit, and each adopted, 
through imitation, the song of its foster-parent.” I 
have myself heard goldfinches that were reared in a 
cage sing beautifully, but not the regular goldfinch 
song; it was clearly the song of a finch, but of what 
finch I could not have told. I have also heard a robin 
that sang to perfection the song of the brown 
thrasher ; it had, no doubt, caught it by imitation. 
I have heard another robin that had the call of the 
quail interpolated into its own proper robin’s song. 
But I have yet to hear of a robin building a nest like 
a brown thrasher, or of an oriole building a nest like 
a robin, or of kingfishers drilling for grubs in a tree. 
The hen cannot keep out of the water the ducks she 
has hatched, nor can the duck coax into the water 
the chickens she has hatched. The cowbird hatched 
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