626 APPENDIX. 



that there cannot poflibly be much variety in the 

 part of the fecond bulfinch. See Tab. XI. in the 

 Philofophical Tranfaclions, Vol. LXIII. 



Though feveral birds have great mufical powers, 

 yet they feem to have no delicacy of fenfations, 

 as the human finger hath ; and therefore the very 

 beft of them cannot be taught to exceed the in- 

 fipidity of the upper part of the flute flop of an 

 organ *, which hath not the modern improvement 

 of a [well. 



They are eafily impofed upon by that moft im- 

 perfect cf all inftruments, a bird-call, which they 

 often miitake for the notes of their own fpecies. 



I have before obferved, that perhaps no bird 

 may be faid to fing which is larger than a black 

 bird, though many of them are taught to fpeak : 

 the fmaller birds, however, have this power of imi- 

 tation ; though perhaps the larger ones have not 

 organs which may enable them, on the other hand, 

 to fing. 



We have the following inftances of birds being 

 taught to fpeak, in the time of the Greeks and 



* Lord Bacon mentions, that in the inftrument called a 

 regal/ (which was a fpecies of portable organ) there was a nigh- 

 tingale flop, in which water was made ufe of to produce the 

 flronger imitation of this bird's tone- See Cent. II. exper. 

 172. Though this inftrument, as well as its nightingale flop, 

 is now difufed, I have procured an organ pipe to be immerfed 

 partly in water, which, when blown into, hath produced a 

 tone very fimilar to that of birds* 



Romans 



