INTRODUCTION. 
Ixxxiii 
and Grasshoppfci* warbler are true ventriloquists, and gifted with the power 
of throwing their voices to a distance. The filaments, into which the 
tongues of birds are broken at the tip, contribute greatly, it is said, to the 
mellowness of their tunes. Besides the song of the male, it possesses, in 
common with the female, short, twittering, inharmonious notes, which 
seem to be their common language, and by which they express their 
desires. Most of the songsters sing only when perched ; but the Skylark, 
the \Yoodlark, the Titlark, the Sedge-bird, the Blackcap, the Redstart, the 
Whinchat, the Stonechat, the Whitethroat, the Waterouzel, and the Swal- 
low, sing on the wing. The Nightingale, the Woodlark, the Sedge-bird, 
though all diurnal songsters, pour forth nocturnal songs ; — the Woodlark 
in circles in mid-air, the Nightingale on some favourite bush, and the 
Sedge-bird on the wing, or among the reeds. Some birds imitate human' 
speech; the Parrot, the Raven, the Magpie, the Starling, the Bullfinch, and 
the Jay, are now most remarked for loquacity ; but the ancients, according 
to Pliny, Porphyry, and Statius, taught the Cock, the Nightingale, the Red- 
breast, the Thrush, and the Partridge, to articulate words. Some speak in 
broken and unconnected sentences ; others are enabled to support a con- 
versation. Pliny tells us of a Raven, which every day learned new expres- 
sions, and by whose eloquence his master was rapidly acquiring a fortune, 
until, envious of his prosperity, a neighbour destroyed the bird ; but the 
Roman people, who delighted in crowning conquerors, in grandeur, and in 
show, decreed a public funeral for the ill-fated bird. Of those birds that 
sing, the Nightingale, by universal consent, ranks as the leader of the wild 
choristers of the grove ; and among us the Missel-thrush is the largest 
bird, the voice of which is harmonious ; and the common Wren, the 
smallest, gifted with a pleasant song. 
The power of song has given rise to different opinions concerning its cause, one party 
attributing it solely to love, the other denying it to be its effect : the advocates of the latter opi- 
nion approach nearer to the fact; by love we must understand sensual appetite, which, in all of 
the warblers, is excited and active only in the spring and summer; it follows as a consequence, 
M 2 
