• BIRD STORIES.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—The faculty of imitating sounds and songs not their own must be more frequent in blackbirds than is generally supposed. I remember in the spring of 1879, in the little copse on the side of the Franenberg at Fulda, hearing several blackbirds sing a fragment of the well-known "Du hist verreckt mein kind." They all sang the same first few notes, breaking off with exactly the same quavering, hesitating sound, beginning over and over again. I 'tried to find out how they had acquired this addition to their usual natural repertoire, but could not, until an old lady explained to me that the blackbirds on the Frauenberg must have learnt the air from a tame bird belonging to a soldier, which had been taught by him to warble this tune. I saw this blackbird in a cage hanging over the cottage-door, but I did not hear it sing. I have observed another instance of this faculty of acquisition this year in the Pare de Montsouris in Paris. We have been interested in noticing one particularly good-voiced bird singing quite differently from his fellows. It seemed sometimes as we listened in the quiet of the early dawn or late evening as if the bird were trying to invent a new song ; it may be he was only imitating. Anyhow, our attention was called to the performance of this particular bird by the difference from the usUal blackbird's song.—I am Sir, &c.,
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