276 A BOOK-LOVER'S HOLIDAYS 



where they are plentiful, as in some Italian 

 woods, can compare in strength and ecstasy 

 and passion, in volume and intricate change 

 and continuity, with the challenging love-songs 

 of many mockers, rivalling one another, as they 

 perch and balance and spring upward and float 

 downward through the branches of live-oak or 

 magnolia, after sunset and before sunrise, and 

 in the warm, still, brilliant moonlight of spring 

 and early summer. 



There were other birds. The soldierly look- 

 ing red-headed woodpeckers, in their strik- 

 ing black, red, and white uniform, were much 

 in evidence. Gaudy painted finches, or "non- 

 pareils," were less conspicuous only because of 

 their small size. Blue jays had raised their 

 young in front of the house, and, as I was in- 

 formed, had been successfully beaten off by the 

 mockers and thrashers when they attempted 

 assaults on the eggs and nestlings of the latter. 

 Purple martins darted through the air. King- 

 birds chased the big grackles and the numerous 

 small fish-crows — not so very much bigger than 

 the grackles — which uttered queer, hoarse 

 croakings. A pair of crested flycatchers had 

 their nest in a hollow in a tree; the five boldly 

 marked eggs rested, as usual, partly on a shed 

 snake skin. How, I wonder, through the im- 



