242 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



I know, the best British mimics are the Sedge Warbler, Starling, 

 Thrush, Sky Lark, Kedbreast, Blackbird, Missel Thrush, Black- 

 cap, Redstart, Whitethroat, and Nightingale ; the better mimics 

 being here mentioned first. I have not heard the song of the Wood 

 Lark. The mimicry is not immediately acquired, but is the 

 result of practice. The first autumnal songs of the Starling and 

 Redbreast, heard in August, are scarcely imitative, for the birds 

 have then been silent for a time, and have forgotten most of their 

 imitations. The Starling sings well in autumn, but is most 

 imitative and vehement in spring. In autumn young Thrushes 

 and Blackbirds practise sotto voce imitations of the songs of other 

 birds; but these imitations are lost in winter, and are slowly 

 resumed during spring ; consequently the summer songs of these 

 birds are richer in imitations than are those uttered in early 

 spring. It is natural that birds should imitate only those notes 

 that are frequently heard in their haunts ; and their songs are, 

 in fact, in a great measure restricted to such sounds. At Weston- 

 super-Mare the Thrushes imitate frequently the cry of the Dunlin, 

 a common and noisy bird there; and in April, 1889, a Thrush 

 that lived in a shrubbery close to the beach uttered little more 

 than this cry, which he varied so often that I at first mistook his 

 song for the notes of a flock of Dunlins, but was undeceived 

 when I saw the singer at the distance of only a few yards. 

 A similar cry was uttered by Thrushes near Clifton Bridge. 

 At Stroud these birds sometimes utter a note like that of 

 the Dunlin, but also like that of the female and young of 

 the Tawny Owl ; and the utterance is induced, as I believe, by 

 the cries of the latter birds, for Dunlins are never found near 

 Stroud, where this Owl is common. The Thrushes at this town 

 are very partial to a cry which has been named " be quick," and 

 this they insensibly blend into imitations of the cry "tewit" of 

 the Nuthatch, from which it was probably derived. The first 

 spring or winter songs of the Thrushes at Stroud are little more 

 than repetitions of this exclamation. The songs of the Starling 

 and Sky Lark also betray the influence of the respective 

 surroundings of individual birds. I have tabulated some of 

 my records of the imitations sung by a few of the best mimics. 

 These tabulated records of each species were made within the 

 space of a year, and they include in the aggregate about 3000 

 phrases. In all my records, immediately consecutive repetitions 



