HAUNTS OF THE MOCKING-BIRD. 7 
itary music, descending to us by immemorial 
custom. Its notes are echoing within us, and 
we feel their authenticity though in fact we 
know as little about the bird as chemists do 
about Geber. How shall we doubt that the 
bird whose song inspired Keats to write that 
masterpiece of English poetry is indeed a 
wonderful musician? Shakespeare and rare 
Ben Jonson and Burns and Scott and Shelley 
and Byron heard this same song; it was just 
as clear and sweet as it is now when Chaucer 
was telling his rhymed tales, when Robin 
Hood was in the greenwood, even when the 
Romans made their first invasion. 
In a general way, we do not think of the 
nightingale having a nest and rearing a brood 
and dying. It is simply the incomparable 
nightingale, philomela, rossignol, or whatever 
the name may be,—a bird that has been sing- 
ing in rose-gardens and orange-orchards and 
English woods night after night for thousands 
of years without a rival. Its song is to the 
imagination of all of us 
“L’hymne flottant des nuits d’été.” 
as Lamartine has expressed it. So it can 
easily be understood how hard a struggle our 
American mocking-bird is going to have before 
it reaches a place in the world’s esteem beside 
the nightingale. Nor is it my purpose to do 
anything with a special view to aid it in the 
struggle; but I have studied our bird in all 
its haunts and in all seasons, with a view to a 
most intimate acquaintance with its habits, its 
song, and its character. 
To begin with, the name mocking-bird, is a 
heavy load for any bird to bear. Unmusical 
