8 BY-WAYS AND B/IRD-NOTES. 
as it is, the worst feature of such an appella- 
tion is the idea of flippancy and ill-breeding 
that it conveys. To “mock” is to imitate 
with an ill-natured purpose, to jeer at, to ridi- 
cule; it was for mocking that bad children 
were made food for bears. Such a name 
carries with it a shadow of something repel- 
lant, and no poet can ever rescue it, as a 
name, from its meaning and its eight harsh 
consonants. It would indeed require some 
centuries of romantic and charming associa- 
tions to make of it a name by which to con- 
jure, as in the case of the nightingale. The 
bird, with almost any other name than mock- 
ing-bird, would fare much better at the hands 
of artists and poets, and might hope, if birds 
may hope at all, finally to gain the meed of 
praise it so richly deserves. 
In a beautiful little valley among the moun- 
tains of North Georgia I first began to study 
the mocking-bird in its wild state. It was not 
a very common bird there, just rare enough to 
keep one keenly interested in its habits. I 
had great trouble in finding a nest. Manya 
delightful tramp through the thorny thickets 
and wild orchards of plum-trees ended in noth- 
ing, before my eyes discovered the loose sticks 
and matted midribs of leaves which usually 
make up the songster’s home. The haw-tree, 
several varieties of which grow in the glades 
of what is known as the Cherokee Region, is a 
favorite nesting-place, and so is the honey- 
locust tree, which is also much chosen by the 
shrike or butcher-bird. ‘There is so strong a 
resemblance in colors and size between this 
shrike and the mocking-bird that one is often 
mistaken for the other by careless observers, 
