206 
NATURE NOTES. 
BIRD-SONG.- 
HE song of birds has always been a favourite study 
with field-ornithologists ; but for the most part they 
have been content to study the songs as they are now 
— to learn the love-song, the call and alarm notes, and 
to notice variations in the song of individual birds in one place, 
and the variations in songs which many birds are found to sing 
in widely separated localities. The habit of imitation, the 
generic, and, in some cases, the family resemblance in songs 
and notes (as for instance in the thrushes, buntings, crows, 
gulls, plovers and other waders) and the season of singing, have 
all occupied our attention, and must be familiar subjects to most 
observers of birds. The exceptions to one of these general rules, 
too, e.g., in the resemblance of the songs of the wagtails to that of 
the swallow rather than to those of their near relations the pipits, 
of some finches to that of the buntings, and of a bunting to that 
of the finches, have interested us. But in the work now before us 
Mr. Witchell goes much further, and inquires how birds got 
their notes in the first instance. Here he breaks new, or almost 
new, ground ; but it is hardly correct to say that while the geo- 
graphical distribution of birds has been carefully recorded in all 
parts of the United Kingdom, their manners and various cries 
have hardly been noticed. Those who are acquainted with 
ornithological literature, even superficially, will not agree with 
this. 
“ The scheme of this work is as follows : — A hypothesis on 
the first occurrence of voice in any animal is stated, and the 
influence of combat in perpetuating it is then mentioned. The 
inherited distress cries of young animals (probably produced 
long after the occurrence of the voice in adults), and the reten- 
tion of these cries for the purposes of call-notes, lead to the con- 
sideration of the simplest songs, which are mere repetitions of 
the call-notes, and to those in which variations occur, and which 
probably are affected by the influence of imitation. The pur- 
poses of imitation are then discussed. The scientific value of 
the notes of birds, as bearing upon the ancestry of species, is 
considered at length.” 
The author has given years to the collection of facts in the 
field, and, subsequently, much study to the writings of others, 
and has brought together an enormous mass of information 
upon a subject which he has made his own ; as he is careful to 
point out in the Preface, however novel or otherwise may be the 
theories stated in this book, he can at least claim that, so far as 
he is concerned, they are absolutely original. The book should 
be widely read, for although they may not agree with the author 
* The Rrwliilion of Bird-Sont^. Witli Observations on the Influence of 
Heredity and Imitation. By Charles .\. Witchell ; pp. x., 253. (London : 
A. and C. Black, 1896.) Price 5s. 
