178 NEWS FROM THE BIRDS. 



Another question to which I could not find 

 a satisfactory reply was this : When did the 

 mocker take his meals ? He began to sing be- 

 fore break of day, and his was the last voice 

 heard in the gloaming, and all the intervening 

 hours were musically employed. Even at night 

 his voice often rang out in the darkness and 

 partially waked me. Sometimes, however, he 

 would leap straight up into the air and almost 

 turn a somersault, never pausing in his song. 

 Perhaps he caught an insect on the fly at such 

 times, and thus got something for his maw. In 

 flying from one perch to another he would con- 

 nect the two with a festoon of song. Once he 

 repeated two songs and one alarm call of the 

 Carolina wren while making a rather lengthy 

 aerial journey from the ridge of a roof to a 

 telegraph pole. 



One more eccentricity of this feathered 

 genius must be noted. It vias unaccountable 

 that he never imitated the songs of some very 

 conspicuous feathered lyrists of the place. 

 Amonir them were the wood thrush, the 

 indigo bird, the chi[)ping and bush spar- 

 rows, the summer tanager, the bro\\n thrasher, 

 and the jellow-breasted chat. How much I 

 wished he would try his vocal gifts on some 

 of these birds' sons^s ! If one could only have 



