Chamber birds: their natural history, management, habits, food, diseases, treatment, breeding, and the methods of catching them / By J.M. Bechstein, M.D. Translated from the last German ed., by W.E. Shuckard. To which are added observations compiled from the works of British naturalists.

  • Johann Matthäus Bechstein
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chamber birds: their natural history, management, habits, food, diseases, treatment, breeding, and the methods of catching them / By J.M. Bechstein, M.D. Translated from the last German ed., by W.E. Shuckard. To which are added observations compiled from the works of British naturalists. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    They listen attentively, in fact, to the greater or lesser perfection or charm of the song of the male, to bestow upon that one their love whom they esteem the most accomplished singer. Thus, the most sprightly hen Canary selects the best singer; and the Chaffinch, when at liberty, will choose from among a hundred males the one whose song best pleases her. Chamber birds, as I have before remarked, delight us chiefly by their song, and this is divided into the natm^al and the ac- quired. The former is usually as different as the birds them- selves; and I cannot recal to mind any native bird which has completely acquired the peculiar song of any other species, except- ing only the three species of Shrikes described: these birds, in consequence of their very retentive memory, can imitate very faithfully the song of all the birds in their vicinity; hut mth these they so peculiarly intermix their own discordant notes, that a connoisseur at once detects whether it is the Skylark itself that is singing, or the Wood Chat imitating it. A familiarity with these various songs is not only important to the bird-fancier, hut also to the naturalist, as it frequently happens that observations of consequence can he made upon these feathered creatm’es only through the medium of their song. The acquired song of chamber birds consists partly of the borrowed song of other birds, which young birds, especially, learn in aviaries, or of such as are whistled or played to them upon flutes and organs. Almost all singing birds, if not trans- ferred too young from the nest to the chamber, acquire some bars of such melodies as are daily played or whistled, but only such as are very tractable whoUy abandon their native notes, to sing, purely and without any intermixture, those which they are taught. Thus, the young Goldfinch will learn some of the bars whistled to the Bullfinch; but he is never able to pipe the song so perfectly as the latter. The reason does not lie, as many suppose, in the greater or lesser ductility of the organs, but in the relative capacity of their memory. Those which have not a cleft tongue like singing birds, but are furnished with an | entire broad fleshy one, and are, consequently, enabled to imitate j articulate sounds, are said to speak. Thus, many kinds of I Parrots speak, the Jay also, and several others. Bird-catchers and bird-fanciers also classify the song of bird s thus:—The bird quavers, they say, when it repeats the strophes,
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