338 
APPENDIX. VI. rt , 
as in the instance which I before stated of the 
sparrow. _ 
I must own also, that I conceived, from the 
experiment of educating the robin under a 
nightingale, that the scholar would fix upon 
the note which it first heard when.taken from 
the nest; I imagined likewise, that, if the night- 
ingale had been fully in song, the instruction 
for a fortnight would have been sufficient. 
I have, however, since tried the following ex- 
periment, which convinces me, so much depends 
upon circumstances, and perhaps caprice in the 
scholar, that no general inference, or rule, can 
be laid down with regard to either of these 
suppositions. 
I educated a nestling robin under a wood- 
lark-linnet, which was full in song, and hung 
very near to him for a month together: after 
which, the robin was removed to another house, 
where he could only hear a skylark-linnet. The 
consequence was, that the nestling did not sing. 
a note of woodlark (though I afterwards hung 
him again just above the woodlark-linnet) but 
adhered entirely to the song of the skylark- 
linnet. 
Having thus stated the result of several ex- 
periments, which were chiefly intended te de- 
termine, whether birds had any innate ideas ef 
