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The Descent of Man

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male birds should continue singing for their<br />

own amusement after the season for courtship<br />

is over.<br />

As shewn in a previous chapter, singing is to a<br />

certain extent an art, and is much improved by<br />

practice. Birds can be taught various tunes, and<br />

even the unmelodious sparrow has learnt to<br />

sing like a linnet. <strong>The</strong>y acquire the song <strong>of</strong> their<br />

foster parents (35. Barrington, ibid. p. 264,<br />

Bechstein, ibid. s. 5.), and sometimes that <strong>of</strong><br />

their neighbours. (36. Dureau de la Malle gives<br />

a curious instance ('Annales des Sc. Nat.' 3rd<br />

series, Zoolog., tom. x. p. 118) <strong>of</strong> some wild<br />

blackbirds in his garden in Paris, which naturally<br />

learnt a republican air from a caged bird.)<br />

All the common songsters belong to the Order<br />

<strong>of</strong> Insessores, and their vocal organs are much<br />

more complex than those <strong>of</strong> most other birds;<br />

yet it is a singular fact that some <strong>of</strong> the Insessores,<br />

such as ravens, crows, and magpies, possess<br />

the proper apparatus (37. Bishop, in

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