52 
SEXUAL SELECTION : BIRDS. 
Part H- 
ever, of most birds and various strange cries are chiefly 
uttered during the breeding-season, and serve as a 
charm, or merely as a call-note, to the other sex. 
Naturalists are much divided with respect to the object 
of the singing of birds. Few more careful observers e-vd 
lived than Montagu, and he maintained that the “ male 8 
“ of song-birds and of many others do not in general 
“ search for the female, but, on the contrary, their 
“ business in the spring is to perch on some conspicuous 
“ spot breathing out their full and amorous notes, which 
“ by instinct, the female knows, and repairs to the spot to 
“ choose her mate .” 27 Mr. Jenner Weir informs me that 
this is certainly the case with the nightingale. Becb' 
stein, who kept birds during his whole life, asserts, “that 
“ the female canary always chooses the best singer, and 
“ that in a state of nature the female finch selects that 
“ male out of a hundred whose notes please her most .”* 4 
There can be im doubt that birds closely attend to 
each other’s song. Mr. Weir has told me of the case ot 
a bullfinch which had been taught to pipe a GermaU 
waltz, and who was so good a performer that he cost 
ten guineas ; when this bird was first introduced into 
a room where other birds were kept and he began to 
sing, all the others, consisting of about twenty linnet 8 
and canaries, ranged themselves on the nearest side ot 
their cages, and listened with the greatest interest to 
the new performer. Many naturalists believe that th e 
singing of birds is almost exclusively “ the effect of ri' 
“ valry and emulation,” and not for the sake of charmiufl 
their mates. This was the opinion of Dailies Barrington 
and \Y lute ot Selborne, who both especially attended to 
37 1 Ornithological Dictionary,’ 1S33, p. 475. 
28 ‘ Naturgeschichte der Stubenvdgel,’ 1840, s. 4. Mr. Harrison W®* 
likewise writes to me : — “ 1 am informed that the best singing mal e ° 
“ generally get a mate first when they are bred in the same room.” 
