268 Singing Birds and Sweet Flowers in Jamaica. 



Singing Birds and Sweet Flowers in Jamaica. 



(Continued from page 33.) 



But there is one master musician, whose varied notes leave the 

 efforts of his rivals at an immeasurable distance behind him. It is 

 he that makes our sunny glades and shady groves eminently melo- 

 dious, by night and day, sustaining almost the whole burden him- 

 self. 



He is the nightingale of the Western World, the many-voiced 

 Mocking-bird, (Mimus polyglottus). Abundant in almost all situa- 

 tions, from mountain-peak to sea-shore, but especially common in 

 the orchards and about the homesteads of the lowlands, the voice of 

 the Mocking-bird is heard all through the year, even when other 

 birds are silent; and all through the day ; and that not by ones or 

 twos, but by dozens and scores, each straining his melodious throat 



