Chap. XIII. 
VOCAL MUSIC. 
assemblage during the autumn. Hence it is not at all 
surprising that male birds should continue singing for 
their own amusement after the season for courtship is 
over. 
Singing is to a certain extend as shewn in a previous 
chapter, an art, and is much improved by practice. 
Birds can be taught various tunes, and even the un- 
melodious sparrow has learnt to sing like a linnet. 
They acquire the song of their foster-parents,^^ and 
sometimes that of their neighbours.^® All the common 
songsters belong to the Order of Insessores, and their 
vocal organs are much more complex than those of 
most other birds ; yet it is a singular fact that some 
of the Insessores, such as ravens, crows, and magpies, 
possess the proper apparatus,^"^ though they never sing, 
and do not naturally modulate their voices to any great 
extent. Hunter asserts^® that with the true songsters 
the muscles of the larynx are stronger in the males 
than in the females ; but with this slight exception there 
is no difference in the vocal organs of the two sexes, 
although the males of most species sing so much better 
and more continuouslv than the females. 
It is remarkable that only small birds properly sing. 
The Australian genus Menura, however, must be ex- 
cepted ; for the Menura Alberti, which is about the size 
of a half-grown turkey, not only mocks other birds, but 
its own whistle is exceedingly beautiful and varied.’" 
The males congregate and form corroborying places,” 
where they sing, raising and spreading their tails like 
L. Lloyd, ‘ Game Birds of Sweden/ 1867, p. 25. 
Barrington, ibid. p. 264. Becbstein, ibid. s. 5. 
Durean de la Malle gives a cnrious instance (‘ Annales des Sc. Nat."" 
3rd series, Zoolog. tom. x. p. 118) of some wild blackbirds in bis garden 
in Paris which naturally learnt from a caged bird a republican air. 
Bishop, in ‘Todd’s Cyclop, of Anat. and Phys.’ vol. iv. p. 1496. 
As stated by Barrington in ‘Philosoph. Transact.’ 1773, p. 262. 
