A writer in an Australian quarterly for April, 1906, tells of a magpie near Melbourne, which while a captive had been taught to whistle “Merrily danced the Quaker’s wife, merrily danced the Quaker,” and passed the song on to its young, through whom, in a more or less fragmentary way, it was transmitted to subsequent generations, so that there are “many now in the forest who still conclude their beautiful wild notes with the ascending notes which terminate the old air.” (Text.)
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TRANSMUTATION
A black character is not changed in a day to white saintliness, any more than a black berry to a white one.
In turning out the white blackberry Mr. Burbank is said to have applied the Darwinian theory inversely. He kept on selecting berries which, in ripening, did not become pure black, and finally got a bush in which the fruit changed from the green of immaturity to pure white. This involved the examination of some 25,000 bushes several times in several succeeding years. The painstaking energy necessary in such a search is merely suggested by such figures.—The Strand Magazine.
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TRANSMUTATION BY GENIUS
Many of Burns’ songs were already in existence in the lips and minds of the people, rough and coarse, and obscene. Our benefactor takes them, and with a touch of inspired alchemy transmutes them and leaves them pure gold. He loved the old catches and the old tunes, and into these gracious molds he poured his exquisite gifts of thought and expression. But for him these ancient airs, often wedded to words which no decent man could recite, would have perished from that corruption if not from neglect. He rescued them for us by his songs, and in doing so he hallowed life and sweetened the breath of Scotland.—Lord Rosebery.
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Trap, A Natural—See [Devices, Fatal].