236 



VOCAL POWERS OF THE MOCKING-BIRD. 



the Mocking-bird can with equal ease imitate, or rather reproduce, the sweet and gentle 

 twittering of the blue-bird, the rich, full song of the thrush, or the harsh, ear-piercing scream 

 of the eagle. At night especially, when labor has ceased, " silence has attuned her. ear," says 

 Webber, ' ' and earth hears her merry voices singing in her sleep. 



"Yes, they are all here! Hear then each warble, chirp and thrill! How they crowd 

 upon each other ! You can hear the flutter of soft wings as they come hurrying forth ! Hark, 

 that rich clear whistle ! ' Bob White, is it you ? ' Then the sudden scream ! is it a hawk I 

 Hey ! what a gush, what a rolling limpid gush ! Ah, my dainty redbreast, at thy matins 

 early ! Mew ! what, Pussy ! No, the cat-bird ; hear its low liquid love-notes linger round the 

 roses by the garden-walk ! Hillo ! listen to the little wren ! he must nearly explode in the 

 climax of that little agony of trills which it is rising on its very tip-toes to reach ! What 



MOCKING-BUU). Mimws potyyloUiai. 



now ? Quack, quack ! Phut, phut, phut ! cock-doodle-doo ! What, all the barn-yard ! 

 Squeak, squeak, squeak ! pigs and all. Hark, that melancholy plaint, Whip-poor- Will, how 

 sadly it comes from out the shadowy distance! What a contrast! the red-bird's lively 

 whistle, shrilly mounting high, higher, highest! Hark, the orchard oiiole's gay, delicious, 

 roaring, run-mad, ranting-riot of sweet sounds ! Hear that ! it is the rain-crow, croaking for a 

 storm ! Hey day ! Jay, jay, jay ! it is the imperial dandy blue-jay. Hear, he has a strange, 

 round, mellow whistle too! There goes the little yellow-throated warbler, the woodpecker's 

 sudden call, the king-bird's woeful clatter, the dove's low plaintive coo, the owl's screeching 

 cry and snapping beak, the tomtit's tiny note, the kingfisher's rattle, the crow, the scream, 

 the cry of love, or hate, or joy, all come rapidly, and in unexpected contrasts, yet with such 

 clear precision, that each bird is fully expressed to my mind in its own individuality." 



Yet all these varied notes are uttered by the one single Mocking-bird, as it sits on a lofty 

 spray or flings itself into the air, rising and falling with the cadence of its song, and acting 

 as if absolutely intoxicated with sweet sounds. 



Let it but approach the habitation of man, and it straightway adds a new series of sounds 

 to its already vast store, laying up in its most rententive memory the various noises that are 

 produced by man and his surroundings, and introducing among its other imitations the bark- 

 ing of dogs, the harsh "setting" of saws, the whirring buzz of the millstone, the everlasting 



