THE _ 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Vow. x1u.— APRIL, 1879. — No. 4. 
ANIMAL MUSIC, ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. 
BY XENOS CLARK, B.S. 
HE songs of birds and the few other animals that sing, have 
almost exclusively been treated of in the world of sentiment, 
where poet-naturalists and nature-poets have culled a wealth of 
fancies that will endure as long as there is human emotion, but 
which count for little in the field of exact knowledge. They are 
choice reading ; a kind of pleasure gardens. The purpose here is 
simply to bring together such songs as have been written in 
musical notation, and from this compilation to make whatever 
inductions may seem of scientific value to ornithologists, physiolo- 
gists, psychologists and theoretical musicians, whose studies touch 
this subject. 
The young bird acquires his song by traditional inheritance ; 
that is, each brood, endowed by physiological inheritance with a 
certain aptitude, learns, after long practice, by constantly hearing 
the song of its elders, the melody peculiar to that species, which 
is in turn similarly transmitted to the succeeding generation. In 
conclusive proof of this is the fact, that a young nestling rered 
by foster-parents of some other species will learn their song. 
Hon. Daines Barrington (1) an early and discriminating observer, 
‘says; “I have educated nestling linnets under the three best sing- 
ing larks, the skylark, woodlark and titlark, every one of which, 
instead of the linnet’s song, adhered entirely to that of their 
respective instructors.” This process seems very decisive, for a 
titlark-linnet (a linnet educated by a titlark), well fixed in song, 
which he kept for three months with common linnets in full song, 
borrowed no passages, but adhered to the titlark melody. It 
1The references are made by Roman numerals to the list at the end of the article. 
O VOL. XIII,—No, IV. 15 
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