104 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



hill-sides with a growth of underbrush, and having a 

 southern exposure. In such situations they were numer- 

 ous, and to one such locality, in particular, I can well re- 

 member the charm they added by the bright gleam of 

 their plumage as they passed from tree to tree, uttering 

 their peculiar but not melodious notes. For the past 

 twenty years I have not seen half a dozen individuals, 

 and no nests have been recorded since 1857. In far 

 scantier numbers the scarlet tanager has taken their 

 place, although this bird is not rare by any means, nor 

 was it so when the preceding species was abundant. 



It is much the same with the mocking-bird. For- 

 merly as regular in its appearance, if not as abundant, as 

 the cat-bird, it is now among our rarest summer visitants. 

 An occasional pair, selecting some well-tangled thicket, 

 will come late or early and build their nest, and then 

 half a dozen years may elapse before we see them again. 

 Yet fifty years ago these birds were common. 



Gabriel Thomas, in his history of " Pensilvania and 

 West New Jersey," published in 1698, in the list of birds 

 of Pennsylvania to which his attention had been called, 

 refers to this thrush as "that strange and remarkable 

 fowl call'd (in these parts) the Mocking- Bir d" ; and 

 again, in making a similar list of " West New Jersey " 

 animals, he mentions " that uncommon and valuable Bird 

 (being near the bigness of a Cuckoo) call'd the Mocking- 

 Bird." From the prominence he gives it in the brief list 

 of such large birds as geese, eagles, and pheasants, I pre- 

 sume that it was then a very abundant species. Fifty 

 years later, Kalm found mocking-birds near Philadelphia, 

 and remarks, " These birds stay all summer in the colonies, 

 bnt retire in autumn to the South, and stay away all win- 

 ter." 



During the past half-century the numbers of these 



