WHEREVER we happen to be, we are given to asking ourselves or others unanswerable questions. Why do birds sing? is one of these. It is not enough to reply, as I know has too often been done: because it is their nature to sing. If nothing more rational than this can be said, then let us keep silent. To admit our ignorance is manly, while to assume knowledge is detestable. Whether, in the present case, we are confronted with an unsolvable problem or not remains to be seen.

My reply to this often-put query is a series of suggestions. Nearly twenty years ago, in an English magazine I suggested that “birds, like mankind, sing for pleasure and talk from necessity." Many years spent more in the company of birds than of men have not caused me to change my mind.

But let us go over the ground anew. Let us take a somewhat careful survey of familiar birdlife, such as we find it in the outskirts of all our towns. By so doing we will free ourselves of many wrong impressions, especially that common one that every bird of a given species is like all its fellows. There is as much individuality among birds as among men. It will be noticed, too, at the very outset, that not all birds sing, and yet not one of them is mute. Of course, it will be very necessary in such an investigation to distinguish between utterances that, while harsh to our ears, may not be so to the bird, and not set down as an exclamation of surprise or fear what may be one of soothing import to the utterer or its interested hearer. There is one note, or rather a brief series of notes, uttered by the crow that probably should come under the heading of song; and every one who is familiar with our blue-jay knows that at times it trills a few flute-like notes that are very musical. Here are instances where, in the case of a crow, we might go astray, while no one would fail to credit the jay with ability to sing; yet neither bird is ever classed under the heading of songsters.

Whether logical or not, in studies of animal life we must consider what we would do and have done and are daily doing under like circumstances, and from such data draw our conclusions. Now, it is significant that no song-bird proper, be it thrush, lark, or grosbeak, is limited in its utterances to the characteristic song. This is but one of a considerable series, and is heard only under certain circumstances, and the other utterances, each as well defined as the song, are, too, only uttered when conditions arise that call for them. In the same way, speaking of ourselves, we laugh when amused, cry when in pain, and sing when merry or contemplative. Who, with a jumping toothache, could sing “Annie Laurie"?

Are these but catchy phrases to avoid straightforward consideration of the question? Let us take a walk across lots, into the woods, and look about the swamps and river. Here in the angle of an old worm-fence is a clump of blackberry briers, and it is easy to watch the pair of cat-birds that have their nest where the briers are most tangled. This nest and the four green eggs are sufficient to command their owner's whole attention. This is evident at a glance; but see how the lord of the little manor breaks free of life's exacting cares and yields to a love of less laborious life. All men are not lazy, but who among us does not love his ease? Above the briers, away from all entanglement, the cat-bird perches on a convenient limb of the nearest tree and gives himself up to song. This is not a mere repetition of the chirps and twitters that marked every movement when busy about the nest or intent upon securing food. These were not by any means monotonous twangings of a single string, but highly varied, and clearly had reference to the various demands of the moment. A low chuckle calls his mate; a shrill chirp warns her of possible danger; the scarcely audible utterances when near each other, when “billing and cooing," are clearly the interchange of ideas; but now, how vastly different and yet equally significannt!

The self-released bird needs, or thinks he needs, rest and recreation, and for the time gives himself up to song. He rejoices in his own musical powers. Every note of every other bird that is within the compass of his voice he repeats, and, withal, sounds many a matchless note wholly his own. From side to side he tosses his head as if such movements affected his voice. His body sways to and fro or pitches forward as the sounds grow shriller, and then, as if exhausted by the effort, he wraps his feathers more closely about him, and then the song dies away as though he could but whisper the thought that latest came to him. The whole performance is ecstatic; an expression of the emotions that is the counterpart of music, whether vocal or instrumental, among mankind. Here, then, we have an inkling, if not much more, of why a bird sings. It has emotions like unto our own, and expresses them in like manner.

Not every bird has the same manner; very many are far less demonstrative, and yet underlying it all will be found the same impulse. Here is the confiding little field-sparrow that will scarcely move from your path. It is too happy to be forever busy with life's commonplaces, and a hundred times a day warbles a few gleeful notes that should touch the heart of even a hawk, if the world was not so far from perfect. The meadow-lark, too, is another prominent example of what I would make clear. It cannot withstand the temptation to mount to the very topmost twig of the tallest tree in the pasture, and for half an hour whistle “I see you, — you can't see me!” This song has nothing to do with the bird's ordinary occupations. It is a breaking in upon them, just as we who labor all love to do, — lay aside our tools and take up the fiddle and the bow. I do not propose to trifle with the subject, but give honest expression to my convictions in this matter. So long as we persist in considering ourselves as something widely different and wholly set apart from the animal creation, birds and all other forms of life will be a profound mystery to us, and whatsoever they do, beyond our powers of interpretation; but let it dawn upon us that they are largely governed by the same laws, actuated by the same motives, — the same causes urging them to do and dare, — then the differences between the various utterances of a bird will become evident, and we will go away convinced that birds, like mankind, sing for pleasure and toil from necessity.

It has been shown conclusively by philosophical naturalists that the songs of birds have a close association with the pairing of birds, and all that belongs to the continuance of the race. Here we are brought, I doubt not, face to face with the question of the origin of song, which is not that which heads this article. In the beginning of birdlife there were few, if any, songsters. The birds' immediate ancestors made day or night hideous if they cried out at all, and only after countless centuries of gradual evolution of highly-specialized forms did the song-bird, as we know it, come upon the scene. These early musicians possibly sang only during the nesting season, and more to please their mates than themselves. The original impulse still survives; but there is now an added phase, — singing from pure love of music. I have mentioned several instances of this, and many more could be given, but with one of a striking character I will conclude. It is well known that in autumn there is comparative silence among those birds that in early summer made the woods and fields fairly tremble with the flood of song, and in autumn those birds that are migrating southward seldom utter more than an occasional chirp. Among all these an exception to the rule sometimes happens. As if some object near recalled happy by-gone days, the almost silent bird pauses in his occupation and sings as though it were May-day and not October. This is not so unusual as to have no significance. I have heard it a thousand times, and now offer such songs out of season as further evidence that the prompting of birds and men to indulge in song is essentially the same.