ON THE SINGING OF BIRDS. 
linnet’s song, but adhered stedfastly to that of 
the titlark. 
I had some curiosity to find out whether an 
European nestling would equally learn the note 
of an African bird: I therefore educated a 
young linnet under a vengolina,* which imitated 
its African master so exactly, without any mix- 
ture of the linnet song, that it was impossible to 
distinguish the one from the other. 
This vepgolina-linnet was absolutely perfect, 
without ever uttering a single note by which it 
could have been known to bea linnet. In some 
of my other experiments, however, the nestling 
linnet retained the call of its own species, or 
what the bird-catchers term the linnet’s chuckle, 
from some resemblance to that word when pro- 
nounced. 
I have before stated, that all my nestling lin- 
nets were three weeks old, when taken from the 
nest; and by that time they frequently learn 
their own call from the parent birds, which I} 
* This bird seems not to have been described by any of the 
ornithologists; it is of. the finch tribe, and about the same size 
with our aberdavine (or siskin). The colors are grey and white, 
and the cock hath a bright yellow spot upon the rump. It is 
a. very familiar bird, and sings better than any of those which 
are not European, except the Americun mocking bird. An in- 
stance hath lately happened, in an aviary at Hampstead, of a 
vengolina’s breeding with a Canary bird. 
BES 
