White of Selborne, who both especially attended to this subject. (29.
Philosophical Transactions, 1773, p. 263. White s Natural History of
Selborne, 1825, vol. i. p. 246.) Barrington, however, admits that
superiority in song gives to birds an amazing ascendancy over others,
as is well known to bird-catchers.
It is certain that there is an intense degree of rivalry between the
males in their singing. Bird-fanciers match their birds to see which
will sing longest; and I was told by Mr. Yarrell that a first-rate bird
will sometimes sing till he drops down almost dead, or according to
Bechstein (30. Naturgesch. der Stubenvogel, 1840, s. 252.), quite
dead from rupturing a vessel in the lungs. Whatever the cause may be,
male birds, as I hear from Mr. Weir, often die suddenly during the
season of song. That the habit of singing is sometimes quite
independent of love is clear, for a sterile, hybrid canary-bird has
been described (31. Mr. Bold, Zoologist, 1843-44, p. 659.) as singing
whilst viewing itself in a mirror, and then dashing at its own image;
it likewise attacked with fury a female canary, when put into the same
cage. The jealousy excited by the act of singing is constantly taken
advantage of by bird-catchers; a male, in good song, is hidden and
protected, whilst a stuffed bird, surrounded by limed twigs, is exposed
to view. In this manner, as Mr. Weir informs me, a man has in the
course of a single day caught fifty, and in one instance, seventy, male
chaffinches. The power and inclination to sing differ so greatly with
birds that although the price of an ordinary male chaffinch is only
sixpence, Mr. Weir saw one bird for which the bird-catcher asked three
pounds; the test of a really good singer being that it will continue to
sing whilst the cage is swung round the owner s head.
That male birds should sing from emulation as well as for charming the
female, is not at all incompatible; and it might have been expected
that these two habits would have concurred, like those of display and
pugnacity. Some authors, however, argue that the song of the male
cannot serve to charm the female, because the females of some few
species, such as of the canary, robin, lark, and bullfinch, especially
when in a state of widowhood, as Bechstein remarks, pour forth fairly
melodious strains. In some of these cases the habit of singing may be
in part attributed to the females having been highly fed and confined
(32. D. Barrington, Philosophical Transactions, 1773, p. 262.
Bechstein, Stubenvogel, 1840, s. 4.), for this disturbs all the
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