196 THE CONDOR . Vol. XXIV 
tory. It is elaborated from pre-existing elements, and is in no wise concelva- 
ble as in itself an original form of utterance. 
The above considerations cannot pass through the mind without bringing 
in their wake the question: Is there any useful purpose served in this fact of 
song elaboration? Does it get the bird anything it lacked before? Is an essen- 
tially songless bird a loser in the give and take of avian existence? 
Witchell makes certain observations (p. 177) suggesting the possibility that 
in the strict social economy of bird life the elaborating tendency may be some- 
what counteracted by some necessity of preserving the specific identity of both 
calls and songs for reasons of practical convenience. The calls certainly, and 
the songs almost as certainly, might lose their usefulness in a social sense if 
modified at the whims of individuals. But evidently individual modifications 
are not passed on and therefore do not become of racial importance. The slow- 
ness of organic evolution makes it plain that there must be deep-seated in birds, 
as in the rest of nature, an instinctive obedience to some principle of conserva- 
tive action. 
But just as plainly there is an instinctive recognition of the necessity of 
progress. That must explain why individuals get ‘‘freakish”’. But their freak- 
ishness avails the race nothing unless they get that way in groups, following a 
racial behavior pattern. It is a truism to say that lfe—ineluding voeal bird 
hife—imphes within itself the need for growth, advancement. But even that 
does not satisfactorily explain why a bird improves its song: it merely says that 
he does because he does. Now, the following, I admit, is a theory. Given the 
primal necessity for song improvement, existing merely because the bird is 
alive, I believe that it carries with it and confers upon the bird, as a result of 
itself, some appreciation of itself. The bird, in other words, somewhat apprect- 
ates the work which it finds itself to have done in the hne of song improvement. 
It is not unaware of its achievement, and is ‘‘interested’’ or ‘‘pleased’’ or even 
‘felated’’. On what grounds? Because it feels the results to be useful or prac- 
tical? I doubt it. Because it feels them to be pleasing—that’s all. Insofar as 
vocal bird life is concerned, I cannot help believing that we are concerned with 
what Lloyd Morgan has ealled (p. 270) ‘‘the germs of aestheties’’. In his lowly 
way—on his ‘‘perceptual’’ rather than ‘‘ideational’’ plane of mental develop- 
ment—why should not a bird, in his leisure moments and under the spell of the 
mating season, feel an impulse to outdo himself in song—an impulse heightened 
by his realization of results spontaneously achieved by mere virtue of living? 
I beheve that herein hes the explanation of the evolution of bird song. The 
songster is an esthete. I shall say more of this beyond. 
2. The fact of elaboration through imitation Upon analysis of the situ- 
ation it becomes apparent that bird song can be elaborated in no other way than 
through imitation. The ‘‘mimetie origin of bird song’’ (see Rhoads, 1889) is 
not only the reasonable, but the inevitable origin—only we must here guard 
against understanding ‘‘origin’’ to be a synonym of ‘‘cause’’. Mimiery is ecer- 
tainly not the cause of song-development: it is the method employed—the only 
method, in the nature of things, available. Elaboration 7s imitation; though 
in many cases songs that we consider ‘‘original’’ may have been in reality copied 
from singers that have ceased to exist in the age and environment of the imita- 
tor (see Witchell, p. 227). It is, after all, quite natural that a species, working 
out its song through its individuals, should seize upon and utilize the notes of 
