“... Female song is uncommon in birds.”

— David Lack

[The Life of the Robin, https://books.google.com/books?id=wZs_AAAAYAAJ, 1943, H.F. & G. Witherby Limited] p. 28
The Life of the Robin (1943)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "... Female song is uncommon in birds." by David Lack?

David Lack 2

British ornithologist and biologist 1910–1973

Related quotes

“I scrawled Song Birds across the blue
stuck the sticky note to my wall.
Needed to remember
there was a time people cut out
the tongues of Song Birds
to eat them as delicacies.
That afternoon I went outside
and thousands of Song Birds
filled the Rosscarrock sky.
I cried a song of remorse.”

Sheri-D Wilson (1958) Canadian Spoken Word Poet

"Autopsy of a Turvy World"
Autopsy of a Turvy World (2008)

“As every bird-watcher knows, the beauty of a bird's song is inversely correlated with the colourfulness of its plumage.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 5

“One more instance I will give of his interest and his knowledge. We were passing under a fir tree when we heard a small song in the tree above us. We stopped and I said that was the song of a golden-crested wren. He listened very attentively while the bird repeated its little song, as its habit is. Then he said, "I think that is exactly the same song as that of a bird that we have in America"; and that was the only English song that he recognized as being the same as any bird song in America. Some time afterwards I met a bird expert in the Natural History Museum in London and told him this incident, and he confirmed what Colonel Roosevelt had said, that the song of this bird would be about the only song that the two countries had in common. I think that a very remarkable instance of minute and accurate knowledge on the part of Colonel Roosevelt. It was the business of the bird expert in London to know about birds. Colonel Roosevelt's knowledge was a mere incident acquired, not as part of the work of his life, but entirely outside it.”

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933) British Liberal statesman

Recreation (1919)

“Though I know something about British birds I should have been lost and confused among American birds, of which unhappily I know little or nothing. Colonel Roosevelt not only knew more about American birds than I did about British birds, but he knew about British birds also. What he had lacked was an opportunity of hearing their songs, and you cannot get a knowledge of the songs of birds in any other way than by listening to them.
We began our walk, and when a song was heard I told him the name of the bird. I noticed that as soon as I mentioned the name it was unnecessary to tell him more. He knew what the bird was like. It was not necessary for him to see it. He knew the kind of bird it was, its habits and appearance. He just wanted to complete his knowledge by hearing the song. He had, too, a very trained ear for bird songs, which cannot be acquired without having spent much time in listening to them. How he had found time in that busy life to acquire this knowledge so thoroughly it is almost impossible to imagine, but there the knowledge and training undoubtedly were. He had one of the most perfectly trained ears for bird songs that I have ever known, so that if three or four birds were singing together he would pick out their songs, distinguish each, and ask to be told each separate name; and when farther on we heard any bird for a second time, he would remember the song from the first telling and be able to name the bird himself.”

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933) British Liberal statesman

Recreation (1919)

“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Although it appears on U.S. postage featuring Angelou, this is actually a variant quote from the work of poet Joan Walsh Anglund.
Misattributed
Source: Postal Service releases Maya Angelou stamp with quote from another author, Josh Hicks, 7 April 2015, Washington Post, 9 April 2015 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/04/07/postal-serves-releases-maya-angelou-stamp-with-quote-from-another-author/,

“Can you imagine my astonishment, in turn, at learning that part of my own nature was female, and bird-formed, and beautiful?”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Stanislaus Grumman in Ch. 10 : The Shaman
His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)
Context: People here cannot conceive of worlds where dæmons are a silent voice in the mind and no more. Can you imagine my astonishment, in turn, at learning that part of my own nature was female, and bird-formed, and beautiful?

“I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.”

Pete Hamill (1935) American journalist, novelist, essayist, editor and educator

“I think my great book is Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song.”

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) Philosopher

In Herbert F. Vetter, " Not The Average Philosopher http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/hartshorne.html", Harvard Magazine, May/June 1997, Volume 99, Number 5. Vetter was surprised by this, given Hartshorne's dozens of substantial books on theology.

“A bird doesn't sing because he has an answer, he sings because he has a song”

Joan Walsh Anglund (1926) American poet and children's book author

The quote has been misattributed to Maya Angelou at times, including on U.S. postage.
This quote by Joan Walsh Anglund (1967 in her book, A Cup of Sun) has been widely used by Maya Angelou without attribution to Walsh Walsh Anglund, and wrongly misattributed to Maya Angelou many, many times, including on U.S. postage. However, the quote belongs to Joan Walsh Anglund, and is from her book "A Cup of Sun" published in 1967. However, Maya Angelou changed the pronoun "He" to "It" but quoted everything else of Joan Walsh Anglund. Why Maya Angelou never attributed her most famous quote as being Joan Walsh Anglund's is still a mystery to this day.
Source: A Cup of Sun: A Book of Poems (1967)

“I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Songs of Travel and Other Verses

No. XI, Romance, st. 1.
Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)

“... Female song is uncommon in birds.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

David Lack 2

Related quotes

Related topics