THE KING OF THE WOODS. 323 



scampering toward the house, pursued by half a dozen or more of 

 mocking birds. They were darting down upon him and pecking at 

 him from all directions, with special reference to putting out the 

 eyes of the now thoroughly frightened cat, while from their angry 

 little throats all the while was pouring forth a torrent of bird " bil- 

 lingsgate " that could hardly have been excelled by " our army in 

 Flanders." At the dinner table this lady gave a very graphic 

 account of how the tables had been turned on Jim. " But the most 

 singular thing of all," said she, " was that when those mocking birds 

 were pecking away at the eyes of that poor cat, they were all crying 

 ' Scat, scat, scat ! ' " The mocking bird has an angry note consisting 

 of the syllable " ka-a," with short a, sharply and rapidly repeated, 

 and it required no great effort on this lady's part to put an s in 

 front of the k, especially as there was the cat running for dear 

 life, and the confused cries of his winged pursuers did have a great 

 deal of resemblance to the tones of a woman who has surprised pussy 

 with her head in the cream jug. 



The fact is that this southern songster has naturally a very exten- 

 sive repertoire of sounds, most of them musical, to which he seldom 

 adds a new note, and which he generally arranges in pretty definite 

 order. Among these sounds not a few more or less resemble the 

 songs or cries of our common forest birds. It does not require so 

 very vigorous an imagination to transform what is simply the natural 

 note of the mocking bird into a very fair imitation of his less gifted 

 neighbors. That there is any conscious or intentional mimicry 

 about it, facts go to disprove. An isolated bird will sing his own 

 notes and imitate songs he never heard. So, too, with the mocking 

 bird's supposed imitation of the " miew " of a cat, the cry of a 

 chicken, etc., they are all alike the natural notes of the bird plus a 

 little imagination, which the circumstances supply. In point of 

 fact, the mocking bird is a very dull pupil when you attempt to teach 

 him any new musical sounds or combinations of sounds. Whether 

 it is because he " knows it all " already, or is indifferent to new music, 

 the fact remains. One bird, a beautiful natural singer, received 

 patient teaching at night in an unlighted room for a month before 

 he seemed to be trying in an awkward way to imitate the notes of his 

 instructor. It was very much " mixed," but it was clearly an 

 attempt at his lesson — the first five notes of " Rory O'More." This 

 was encouraging, and showed that an impression had at length been 

 made upon the tiny brain. Efforts were redoubled, and at the end of 

 three months the bird could whistle fairly well the first two bars of 

 the song. Still he not infrequently made mistakes, forgot his small 

 " score," and was by no means a success as a singer of anything but 

 his own natural and inimitable songs. 



