332 
APPENDIX. VI. 
The Greek poets made a songster of the 
ver7if, whatever animal that may be, and it is 
remarkable that they observed the female was 
incapable of singing as well as hen birds : 
Ei7’ erosy of rerrivyes oun evdasmoves, 
Qy rag yovareiy ov 0 orlovy pwyys evi s 
Comicorum Grecorwm Sententiz, p. 452. Ed. Steph. 
I have indeed known an instance or two of a 
hen’s making out something like the song of her 
species ; but these are as rare as the common 
hen’s being heard to crow. | 
I rather suspect also, that those parrots, mag- 
pies, &c. which either do not speak at all, or 
very little, are hens of those kinds. 
I have educated nestling linnets under the 
three best singing larks, the skylark, woodlark, 
and titlark, every one of which, instead of the 
linnet’s song, adhered entirely to that of their 
respective instructors. 
When the note of the titlark-linnet* was 
thoroughly fived, I hung the bird in a room with 
two common linnets, for a quarter of a year, 
which were full in song; the titlark-linnet, 
however, did not borrow any passages from the 
* T thus call a bird which sings notes he would not have 
learned in a wild state; thus by a skylark-linnet, I mean a lin- 
net with the skylark song; a nightingale-robin, a robin with the 
nightingale song, &c. 
