[ 2 5 ° ] 
This cry is, as might be expe&ed, very weak and 
querulous j it is dropped entirely as the bird grows 
ftronger, nor is afterwards intermixed with its fong, 
the chirp of a nightingale (for example) being hoarfe 
and difagreeable. 
To this definition of the chirp , I mud add, that 
it confifts of a fingle found, repeated at very fhort 
intervals, and that it is common to neftlings of both 
fexes. 
The call of a bird, is that found which it is able 
to make, when about a month old ; it is, in moft in- 
stances (which I happen to recollect), a repetition of 
one and the fame note, is retained by the bird as 
long as it lives, and is common, generally, to both 
the cock and hen *. 
The next ftage in the notes of a bird is termed, 
by the bird-catchers, recording, which word is pro- 
bably derived from a mufical inltrument, formerly 
nfed in England, called a recorder -f*. 
This attempt in the nettling to fing, may be com- 
pared to the imperfeft endeavour in a child to babble. 
I have known inftances of birds beginning to record 
when they were not a month old. 
* For want of terms to diftinguifh the notes of birds, Bellon 
applies the verb chantent , or fing, to the goofe and crane, as well 
as the nightingale. “ Plufieurs oifeaux chantent la nuit, comme 
“ eft 1’oye, la grue, & le roflignol,” Bellon’s Hift. of Birds, 
*>• 5 °* 
f It feems to have been a fpecies of flute, and was probably 
ufed to teach young birds to pipe tunes. 
Lord Bacon defcribes this inftrument to have been ftrait, to 
have had a lefler and greater bore, both above and below, to 
have required very little breath from the blower, and to have 
had what he calls a fipple , or ftopper. See his fecond Century of 
Experiments. 
This 
