20 BY-WAYS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
dormer windows on the roof in front, and 
graduated parapets to hide the gables, a long 
lean-to veranda and a row of chimneys, a dark, 
heavy-looking building near the south side of 
the Way. In a small tree just east of this 
house used to sing a mocking-bird whose voice 
was as much above the average of his kind as 
Patti’s voice is above the average woman’s 
voice. If one could get a caged bird to sing 
as that one did, he might profitably advertise 
it for concerts. A friend and I sat down 
across the Way from the house, and, while the 
gulf breeze poured over us and the bird music 
filled our ears, got a sketch of the charmingly 
picturesque old place ; but somehow we could 
not put in the song of the wonderful mocking- 
bird. 
Bird-fanciers and bird-buyers may profit by 
what I now whisper to them, to wit: the best- 
voiced mocking-birds, without a doubt, are 
those bred in Middle Florida and Southern 
Alabama. I have no theory in connection 
with this statement of a fact; but if I were 
going to risk the reputation of our country on 
the singing of a mocking-bird against a Euro- 
pean nightingale, I should choose my cham- 
pion from the hill-country in the neighborhood 
of Tallahassee, or from the environs of Mo- 
bile. 
No doubt proper food has much to do with 
the development of the bird in all its parts, 
and it may be that the dry, fertile, chocolate- 
tinted hills that swell up along the Gulf Coast 
produce just the berries, insects, and other tid- 
bits needed for the mocking-bird’s fullest 
growth. ‘Then, perhaps, the climate best suits 
the bird’s nature. Be this as it may, I have 
