HAUNTS OF THE MOCKING-BIRD. i 
Whoever has closely observed the bird has 
noted its “mounting song,” a very frequent 
performance, wherein the songster begins on 
the lowest branch of a tree and appears liter- 
ally to mount on its music, from bough to 
bough, until the highest spray of the top is 
reached, where it will sit for many minutes 
flinging upon the air an ecstatic stream of 
almost infinitely varied vocalization. But he 
who has never heard the “dropping song ” 
has not discovered the last possibility of the 
mocking-bird’s voice. I have never found 
any note of this extremely interesting habit of 
the bird by any ornithologist, a habit which is, 
I suspect, occasional, and connected with the 
most tender part of the mating season. It is, 
in a measure, the reverse of the “ mounting 
song,” beginning where the latter leaves off. 
I have heard it but four times, when I was 
sure of it, during all my rambles and patient 
observations in the chosen haunts of the bird; 
once in North Georgia, twice in the immediate 
vicinity of Tallahassee, Florida, and once 
near the St. Mark’s River, as above men- 
tioned. I have at several other times heard 
the song, as I thought, but not being able to 
see the bird, or clearly distinguish the peculiar 
notes, I cannot register these as certainly cor- 
rect. My attention was first called to this in- 
teresting performance by an aged negro man, 
who, being with me on an egg-hunting expe- 
dition, cried out one morning, as a burst of 
strangely rhapsodic music rang from a haw 
thicket near our extemporized camp, ‘ Lis’n, 
mars, lis’n, dar, he’s a droppin’, he’s a-drop- 
pin’, sho’s yo’ bo’n!” I could not see the 
