the action of making divers inflections of the voice, agreeable to the ear, and correspondent to the notes of a long or piece of melody. See Melody.

The first thing to be done in learning to sing, is to raise a scale of notes by tones and semitones to an octave, and descend by the same notes; and then to rise and fall by greater intervals, as a third, fourth, fifth, &c. and to do all this by notes of different pitch. Then these notes are represented by lines and spaces, to which the syllables fa, sol, la, mi, are applied, and the pupil taught to name each line and space thereby; whence this practice is called sol-faing, the nature, reason, effects, &c. whereof, see under the article Solfaing.

Singing of Birds. It is worthy of observation, that the female of no species of birds ever sings: with birds it is the reverse of what occurs in human kind. Among the feathered tribe, all the cares of life fall to the lot of the tender sex; theirs is the fatigue of incubation; and the principal share in nursing the helpless brood: to alleviate these fatigues, and to support her under them, nature hath given to the male the song, with all the little blandishments and soothing arts; these he fondly exerts (even after courtship) on some spray contiguous to the nest, during the time his mate is performing her parental duties. But that she should be silent is also another wise provision of nature, for her song would discover her nest; as would a gaudiness of plumage, which, for the same reason, seems to have been denied her.

On the song of birds several curious experiments and observations have been made by the Hon. Daines Barrington. See Phil. Transf. vol. Ixiii.

Singular number, in grammar, that number of nouns and verbs which stands opposed to plural. See Grammar, no 14.

Sinister, something on or towards the left hand. Hence some derive the word sinister, à finendo; because the gods, by such auguries, permit us to proceed in our designs.

Sinister, is ordinarily used among us for unlucky; though, in the sacred rites of divination, the Romans used it in an opposite sense. Thus avis sinistra, or a bird on the left hand, was esteemed a happy omen; whence,