these did not sing the songs of their species, but sang a
medley made up of curious imitations of human and other sounds. And
the blue jay never learned to sing "the sweet gurgling roulade of the
wild jays," though it gave the blue jay call correctly. Mr. Keyser's
experiment was interesting and valuable, but his sagacity fails him
when interpreting the action of the jay in roosting in an exposed
place after it had been given its liberty. He thinks this showed how
little instinct can be relied on, and how much the bird needed
parental instruction. Could he not see that the artificial life of the
bird in the cage had demoralized its instincts, and that acquired
habits had supplanted native tendencies? The bird had learned to be
unafraid in the cage, and why should it be afraid out of the cage?
This reminds me of a letter from a correspondent: he had a tame crow
that was not afraid of a gun; therefore he concluded that the old
crows must instill the fear of guns into their young! Why should the
crow be afraid of a gun, if it had learned not to be afraid of the
gunner?

I have seen a young chickadee fly late in the day from the nest in the
cavity of a tree straight to a pear-tree, where it perched close to
the trunk and remained unregarded by its parents till next morning.
But no doubt its parents had given it minute directions before it left
the nest how to fly and where to perch!

That animals learn by experience in a limited way is very certain. Yet
that old birds build better nests or sing better than young ones it
would be hard to prove, though it seems reasonable that it should be
so.

Rarely does one see nests of the same species of varying degrees of
excellence--that is, first nests in the spring. The second nest of any
species is likely to be a more hurried and incomplete affair. Some
species are at all times poor nest-builders, as the cuckoos and the
pigeons. Other birds are good nest-builders, as the orioles, the
thrushes, the finches, the warblers, the hummingbirds, and one never
finds an inferior specimen of the nests of any of these birds. There
is probably no more improvement in this respect among birds than there
is among insects.

I have no proof that wild birds improve in singing. One does not hear
a vireo, or a finch, or a thrush, or a warbler that is noticeably
inferior as a songster to its fellows; their songs are all alike,
except in the few rare cases when one hears a master songster among
its