AVES MIMID/G. 821 



dant at San Antonio on the coast in August and rather uncommon residents 

 at Huanuluan and Maquinchao. 



Hudson, writing of the Patagonian mockingbird, says : " It is a very- 

 common bird, lives in pairs, and feeds on insects and berries. In its nidi- 

 fication it is like the M. cahmdria, the nest being composed of thorns and 

 sticks, and lined with soft dry grass and cow-hair, and placed in the centre 

 of a thorny bush ; the eggs oval, four in number, and very thickly covered 

 with flesh-coloured spots. When a person approaches the nest, the parent 

 birds manifest their anxiety by perching and hopping on the twigs within 

 a yard or two of his head, but without uttering any sound ; the M. calandria, 

 when alarmed, utters incessantly a loud harsh angry cry. Neither of these 

 species will live in confinement. 



"The vocal performance of the Patagonian bird is characterized by the 

 same apparently infinite variety as is that of the Buenos-Ayrean bird. . , . 

 The singing of the Patagonian species is perhaps inferior, his voice being 

 less powerful than that of the other species ; his mellow or clear notes are 

 often mingled with shrill ones resembling the songs or cries of various 

 tenuirostral birds. While incapable of notes so loud or harsh as those of the 

 Buenos-Ayres bird, or of changes so wild and sudden, he possesses even 

 a greater variety of sweet notes : day after day, for months, I heard them 

 singing, and I never once listened to them for any length of time without 

 hearing some note or notes that I had never heard before. I have often ob- 

 served that when a bird, while singing, emits a few of these new notes, he 

 seems surprised and delighted with them ; for after a silent pause he repeats 

 them again and again a vast number of times, as if to impress them on his 

 memory. When he once more resumes his varied singing, for hours, and 

 sometimes for days, the expression he has discovered is still a favourite, 

 and recurs with the greatest frequency. Many individuals seem to possess 

 a peculiar style of singing; and they seem more or less able to borrow or 

 imitate each other's notes : sometimes all the birds frequenting a thicket 

 will be heard constantly repeating, for many days, a few particular notes 

 as if they possessed no other song, while in other localities these notes 

 will not be heard at all. The bird sits on the summit of a bush when sing- 

 ing ; and its music is heard in all seasons, and in all weathers, from dawn 

 till after dark; but he usually sings in a leisurely, unexcited manner, re- 

 maining silent a long interval after every five or six or dozen notes, and 

 apparently listening to his brother performers. These snatches of melody 



