Soluble, a. Capable of dissolution or separation of parts.
Solund or Solan Goose, s. A fowl in bigness and feather very like a tame goose, but his bill longer. Vide Puffin.
Song, s. Anything modulated in the utterance; a ballad, a poem, lay, strain; poetry, poesy; notes of birds; an old song, a trifle.
Song of Birds.—As the song of birds is not allowed to be the effect of love, by an honourable author on the subject of singing birds (Daines Barrington), we shall endeavour to elucidate this matter from experiments on birds in their natural wild state; and also endeavour to prove that their notes are innate, contrary to that author’s opinion. That confined birds will learn the song of others they are constantly kept with, there is no doubt; but then it is generally blended with that peculiar to the species. In the spring, the very great exertions of the male birds in their vociferous notes are certainly the calls to love; and the peculiar note of each is an unerring mark for each to discover its own species. If a confined bird had learned the song of another, without retaining any part of its natural notes, and was set at liberty, it is probable it would never find a mate of its own species; and even supposing it did, there is no reason to believe the young of that bird would be destitute of its native notes; for if nestling birds have no innate notes peculiar to the species, and their song is only learned from the parent bird, how are we to account for the invariable note each species possesses, when it happens that two different species are bred up in the same bush, or in one very contiguous, or when hatched or fostered by a different species.
Although there appears considerable force in these arguments of Montagu, I am disposed to be of opinion, that birds sing most frequently from joy and buoyancy of spirits, and not unfrequently in triumphant defiance of rivalry or attack. I have a red-breast at present, who will sing out whenever I snap my fingers at him; and the sedge-bird sings when a stone is thrown into the bush where he may be.
Syme’s remarks upon the songs of birds, are worth quoting. The notes, he says, of soft-billed birds, are finely-toned, mellow, and plaintive; those of the hard-billed species are sprightly, cheerful, and rapid. This difference proceeds from the construction of the larynx; as a large pipe of an organ produces a deeper and more mellow-toned note than a small pipe, so the trachea of the nightingale, which is wider than that of the canary, sends forth a deeper and more mellow-toned note. Soft-billed birds, also, sing more from the lower part of the throat than the hard-billed species. This, together with the greater width of the larynx of the nightingale and other soft-billed warblers, fully accounts for their soft, round, mellow notes, compared with the shrill, sharp, and clear notes of the canary and other hard-billed songsters. In a comprehensive sense, the complete song of birds includes all the notes they are capable of uttering; and, taken in this sense, it is analogous to the speech of man. It is the vehicle through which these little creatures communicate and convey to each other their mutual wishes and their wants. It may be divided into six distinct separate sounds or parts, each of which is very expressive, even to us, of the feelings which agitate the bird at the moment. To describe their song more fully, we shall divide it in the following manner:—
First—The call-note of the male in spring.
Second—The loud, clear, ardent, fierce notes of defiance.
Third—The soft, tender, full, melodious, love warble.