WESTERN MOCKINGBIRD 319 



their capacity. Even after they leave the nest and are nearly as large as the 

 adults, they follow the overworked father about, begging with quivering wings. 



Food. — Professor Beal (1907) says: "No serious complaints of the 

 bird's depredations in this State [California] have yet been made, 

 but this perhaps is due to the fact that mocking birds are rare in 

 sections where cherries and the smaller deciduous fruits are grown. 

 Where mockers are most abundant, citrus fruits are the principal crop 

 and the birds do not appear to molest them." 



He examined 33 stomachs, taken between July 18 and August 18, 

 which contained 23 percent of animal matter and 77 percent of vege- 

 table. Of the animal food, "beetles of several families formed a little 

 less than 1 percent. Hymenoptera, largely ants, were eaten to the 

 extent of somewhat more than 10 percent. Grasshoppers constituted 

 the largest item of animal food, and amounted to 11 percent of the 

 whole. A few caterpillars and spiders made up the other 1 percent 

 of the animal food." Most of the vegetable food was fruit, some of 

 it wild, "but blackberries or raspberries, grapes, and figs were found 

 in many stomachs. Many of the birds were taken in orchards and 

 gardens, and some were shot in the very act of pilfering blackberries. 

 * * * The only species of wild fruits that were identified were 

 elderberries, which were found in a few stomachs." Seeds of poison 

 oak were conspicuous; one stomach was entirely filled with them. 

 Nineteen other stomachs were examined, taken in nine other months ; 

 they contained much similar material. One, taken in March, contained 

 a lizard; three, taken in September, contained "a few wasps"; the 

 only useful insect eaten was a carabid beetle. 



Robert S. Woods has sent me a photograph of a mocker feeding 

 on the fruit of the pricklypear cactus {Opuntia). Mockers will come 

 freely to feeding stations that are supplied with cultivated or wild 

 fruits and berries. They also eat the berries of the peppertree. 



Voice. — The behavior and voice of the western mockingbird are 

 so similar to these attributes of its gifted eastern relative that it seems 

 sufficient to say that it is just as marvelous a singer, equally versatile, 

 and just as welcome a visitor to town and rural gardens. Many ob- 

 servers have referred to its versatility as a mimic. Mr. Simmons ( 1925 ) 

 says that, in Texas, it "imitates the excited twittle of the Scissor-tailed 

 Flycatcher, the song of the Wood Thrush, calls of the Roadrunner, 

 the Southern Blue Jay, the Sennett Titmouse, the Chuck- will's-widow, 

 the Howell Nighthawk, and countless others, even the Migrant Shrike, 

 the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and some of the smaller warblers ; an in- 

 dividual bird frequently has as many as three dozen imitated songs. 

 Utters each imitation two or three times, and then takes up another, 

 which it treats in the same way ; frequently such repetition is the only 

 thing that distinguishes the imitation from the song mimicked." 



Mr. Sennett (1878) several times heard the screeching call of the 



