The Wild Swan has a very loud call, and utters a melancholy cry when one of the flock is killed; hence it was said by the poets to sing its own dying dirge. Such was the popular belief in olden times; and, looking to the anatomical characteristics of the species, it was, in some degree, supported by the more inflated wind-pipe of the wild when compared with that of the tame species. The _Song of the Swan_ is, however, irreconcileable with sober belief, the only noise of the Wild Swan of our times being unmelodious, and an unpleasing monotony. The Laughing Goose is named from its note having some resemblance to the laugh of man; and not, as Wilson supposes, from the grinning appearance of its mandibles. The Indians imitate its cry by moving the hand quickly against the lips, whilst they repeat the syllable _wah_. The Cuckoo may be said to have done much for musical science, because from that bird has been derived the _minor scale_, the origin of which has puzzled so many; the Cuckoo's couplet being the _minor third_ sung downwards. The Germans are the finest appreciators of the Nightingale; and it is a fact, that when the Prussian authorities, under pecuniary pressure, were about to cut down certain trees near Cologne, which were frequented by Nightingales, the alarmed citizens purchased the trees in order to save the birds and keep their music. Yet one would think the music hardly worth having, if it really sounded as it looks upon paper, transcribed thus by Bechstein, from whom it is quoted by Broderip:-- Zozozozozozozozozozozozo zirrhading Hezezezezezezezezezezezezezezeze cowar ho dze hoi Higaigaigaigaigaigaigaigaigaigai, guaiagai coricor dzio dzio pi.[13] M. Wichterich, of Bonn, remarks:--"It is a vulgar error to suppose that the song of the Nightingale is melancholy, and that it only sings by night. There are two varieties of the Nightingale; one which sings both in the night and the day, and one which sings in the day only." In the year 1858, Mr. Leigh Sotheby, in a letter to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, described a marvellous little specimen of the feathered tribe--a Talking Canary. Its parents had previously and successfully reared many young ones, but three years before they hatched only _one_ out of four eggs, the which they immediately neglected, by commencing the rebuilding of a nest on the top of it. Upon this discovery, the unfledged and forsaken bird, all but dead, was taken away and placed in flannel by the fire, when, after much attention, it was restored, and then brought up by hand. Thus treated, and away from all other birds, it became familiarised only with those who fed it; consequently, its first singing notes were of a character totally different to those usual with the Canary.