BIRDS AND BATTLEFIELDS. 175 



of more than a mere casual notice. He was 

 an aviary in himself. His vocal performances 

 deserve analysis, for they were little short of 

 marvelous. His throat seemed to be a living 

 phonograph. Again and again I bent my ear 

 on his song, and am disposed to announce that 

 almost, perhaps quite, every note he struck 

 was an imitation of one of his fellow-minstrels 

 in feathers. None of his music seemed to be 

 original. A wholesale plagiarist he, boldly pro- 

 claiming: his theft to all the world. Mockers 

 in cao-es are apt to imitate various other sounds, 

 such as the tones of a piano, a dinner horn, or 

 a tooting locomotive, and I have been told of 

 one that would whistle the tune of Home, 

 Sweet Home ; but the minstrel of Missionary 

 Eidge, in the free out of doors, confined his 

 mimicry solely to the songs and calls of other 

 birds, disdaining, it would appear, to borrow 

 from the human world. 



As a copyist of his fellow-lyrists he was an 

 adept. His superior I have never heard. The 

 skill with which he wove together the various 

 songs of the birds of the neighborhood and 

 made them homogeneous was as wonderful as 

 it was amusing. The strains of the Carolina 

 wren seemed to be his special favorites. Many 

 a time in quick succession he would roll from 



