276 The Naturalist in La Plata. 
song is in this slow gradation from the somewhat 
throaty notes emitted by the bird when ascending 
to the excessively attenuated sounds at the close. 
In conclusion of this part I shall speak of one 
species more—the white-banded mocking-bird of 
Patagonia, which greatly excels all other songsters 
known to me in the copiousness, variety and bril- 
liant character of its music. Concealed in the 
foliage this bird will sing by the half-hour, repro- 
ducing with miraculous fidelity the more or less 
melodious set songs of a score of species —a 
strange and beautiful performance ; but wonderful 
as it seems while it lasts, one almost ceases to 
admire this mimicking bird-art when the mocker, 
as if to show by contrasts his unapproachable su- 
periority, bursts into his own divine song, uttered 
with a power, abandon and joyousness resembling, 
but greatly exceeding, that of the skylark “* singing 
at heaven’s gate; ” the notes issuing in a continuous 
torrent ; the voice so brilliant and infinitely varied, 
that if ‘rivalry and emulation” have as large a 
place in feathered breasts as some imagine all that 
hear this surpassing melody might well languish 
ever after in silent despair. 
In a vast majority of the finest musical per- 
formances the same notes are uttered in the same 
order, and after an interval the song is repeated 
without any variation: and it seems impossible that 
we could in any other way have such beautiful con- 
trasts and harmonious lights and shades—the whole 
song, so to speak, like a‘“‘melody sweetly played in 
tune.” This seeming impossibility is accomplished in 
the mocking-bird’s song: the notes never come in the 
