Shanghai, April 15—Three of us were discussing the question of wild bird-song yesterday, and I was pleased to have it confirmed by others that a great variety is noticeable as regards the type of note and song produced by birds of the same species: also that birds different neighbourhoods acquire special habits of enunciation and song, presumably due to their immediate surroundings: the local blackbird is a special exemplar of this peculiarity and a few examples are worth mentioning In Jessfeld Park there is one blackbird wita a very powerful voice who used to commence all his performances with the call, "Tweekytweaky-tweaky", pronounced very slowly and carefully in a descending scale: but for some unknown reason he has now changed his call io something like "Yogi-vai" (repeated very cheerfully) and all the other birds are now copying him. Others at the St. John's end of the park have started to imitate the first few notes of the oriole's call, and that is now the fashionable call in the North-western area. The blackbird in my garden is a most disappointing performer: except on special occasions in the very early morning, his idea of a rollicking song is to sit in a tree and call "Chih-yeh chih-yeh, chihveh"; at one time my neighbour used to be continually whistling for his dog, and the bird imitated him perfectly; but this neighbour has now given up whistling (he has probably lost some teeth, just as I have) so the blackbird
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