A CHILD'S BOOK OF SAINTS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your notice of "A Child's Book of Saints" in the Spectator of November 5th, you query whether it be "a fact.' that birds have "learnt to repeat some of the cadences of the church music" sung by the religious of our old abbeys and minsters. As the point is one that may be of interest to the large number of readers who delight, as I do, in your letters and special articles on birds and animals, I venture to send you the curious passage in Mr. Charles A. Witchell's book on "The Evolution of Bird-Song," which suggested the sentence you quote from "A Child's Book of Saints."—I am, Sir, &CI
WILLIAM CANTON.
5 Bishop's Road, Highgate, N., November 7th.
"The starling appears to sing in chorus unintentionally, fro=
the iiiere fact of several singers being together, but on two occa- ,ioraef have known several starlings join in concluding a certain inusicai phrase commenced by one of their number,—a performance which was repeated so many times consecutively as to be remark- able. Directly one of them began the phrase with the following
.eotes—, the others instantly joined in with the concluding notes
'The whole phrase was :— 'The incident occurred in the churchyard at Bisley, Gloucester- ' shire, and was repeated there on several days when I visited the spot. There were about six starlings singing. The intervals were fairly correct, and the unison was seemingly perfect ; from which we may infer that the phrase had been much practised by the birds, having possibly been originally learned by one of them from some captive, or from the church music, which during eight centuries or more has been heard in that place. I also heard the same song uttered in the same way by starlings at the Conegre, three miles from Bisley, and in the following year I again heard it at the same places ; I have never heard it elsewhere."—" The Evolution of Bird-Song," by Charles A. Witchell (Adam and Charles Black), pp. 83-4.
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