WINTER SINGING OF THE 80NG-TEBUSH. 213 



able to continue observing with more certain result in future 

 winters. 



In the ' Zoologist' for 1894, pp. 410, foil., Mr. O. V. Aplin 

 had a short paper in which he clearly distinguished the autumn 

 song of some birds — e. g. the Bobin and the Chiffchaff {i. e. the 

 song resumed after the moult, often feeble and imperfect) — from 

 the winter song, which in some cases begins in November, and 

 continues more or less regularly till breeding begins : this winter 

 song (if I understood him rightly) he regarded as undoubtedly 

 the beginning of the spring or breeding song. Dr. Hacker does 

 not express himself quite so decidedly, and, on the whole, he 

 seems disposed to take a different view : and as his remarks are 

 interesting in several ways, and are the result (as he tells us in 

 his preface) of twenty years' observation, I take leave to translate 

 them here ('Der Gesang der Vogel,' p. 52): — 



" In the renewal of song in autumn, when the Robin (Erythacus 

 ruhecula), the Blackbird {Turdus merula), and the Chiffchaff' 

 {Phyllopneuste rufa) are conspicuous, we have to do, in distinction 

 from the summer song, exclusively with a kind of voice-play 

 (Spielstimmung) , as Darwin pointed out ; in fact, with a psychical 

 condition, which, for example, is to be found in adult dogs, which 

 delight in play, and invite their masters to join them. 



" The same holds good in part for those birds which, in the 

 middle of winter — i. e, long before the beginning of the breeding 

 season — let us hear their song. To these belong the Wren 

 (Troglodytes parvulus), whose breeding falls in April, and the 

 Dipper (Cinclus aquaticus), which normally has its first brood in 

 April, and its second in June. Here we have to do with birds 

 which are exceptionally robust, and whose perfect adaptability to 

 a winter climate is plain from the fact that here at least (i. e. in 

 Breisgau) they are true residents with a limited winter range. A 

 few hours of winter sunshine is enough to produce in these birds 

 that increase of bodily and psychical comfort which leads to the 

 use of voice-play. 



"I have attempted above to explain the meaning of the different 

 sexual cries in connection with the preservation of the species. 

 Only in a few cases — namely, in those of the autumn and winter 

 song of a few resident species — are we unable to assign to song a 

 positive importance for the preservation of species or individual. 



