DUSKY, GRAY, AND SLATE-COLORED 341 
of delirious music that the woods and the streams stand 
silent to listen.” No bird has been oftener written 
about. It would be difficult to say anything original 
concerning hin, but Mrs. Bailey’s inimitable description 
is worth quoting : 
“The Mocker almost sings with his wings. He has a 
pretty trick of lifting them as his song waxes, a gesture 
that not only serves to show off the white wing-patches, 
but gives.a charming touch of vivacity, an airy, almost 
sublimated fervor to his love song. His fine frenzies 
often carry him quite off his feet. From his chimney-top 
perch he tosses himself up in the air and dances and 
pirouettes as he sings, till he drops back, it would seem 
from sheer lack of breath. He sings all day, and often 
—if we would believe his audiences — he sings down 
the chimney all night, and when camping in Mockerland 
in the full of the moon, you can almost credit the con- 
tention. A Mocker in one tree pipes up, and that wakes 
his brother Mockers in other trees, and when they have 
all done their parts every other sleepy little songster in 
the neighborhood — be he sparrow or wren —rouses 
enough to give a line of his song.” 
His nest, placed often in the hedgerows bordering the 
lawn, is presided over by his more quiet mate, who 
broods. for fourteen days on the mottled blue eggs. 
There is no need to peek into the nest to ascertain 
whether those eggs have hatched, for his fussiness pro- 
claims the event to all who care to know. And now 
come busy days. Both male and female Mockers flit 
through the green like silent shadows hunting insects 
