HAUNTS OF THE MOCKING-BIRD. 21 



found no birds elsewhere to compare with 

 those in that belt of country about thirty miles 

 wide, stretching from Live Oak in Florida, by 

 way of Tallahassee, to some miles west of Mo- 

 bile. Nor is there anywhere a more interest- 

 ing country to him who delights in pleasant 

 wildwood rambles, unusual scenery, and a 

 wonderful variety of birds and flowers in their 

 season. 



Most of our descriptive ornithologists have 

 taken great pains to assure their readers that 

 the American mocking-bird is very plain, if 

 not positively unattractive in its plumage. But 

 to my eye the graceful little fellow, especially 

 when flying, is an object of real beauty. 

 There is a silver-white flash to his wings, along 

 with a shimmer of gray, and a dusky, shadowy 

 twinkle, so to speak, about his head and shoul- 

 ders, as you see him fluttering through the top 

 of an orange tree or climbing, in his peculiar 

 zigzag way, the gnarled boughs of a fig-bush. 

 His throat and breast are the perfection of 

 symmetry, and his eyes are clear pale gold, 

 bright and alert. The eggs of the mocking- 

 bird are delicate and shapely, having a body 

 color of pale, ashy green tinged with blue and 

 blotched with brown. The eggs of the shrike 

 closely resemble those of the mocking-bird, so 

 that the amateur naturalist is often deceived. 

 The nests of the two birds are also very much 

 alike in shape and materials, and the places in 

 which they are usually found are exactly simi- 

 lar, a lonely thorny tree being preferred, if in 

 the wildwood, and a pear-tree or a plum-tree 

 if in an orchard. 



I am quite sure that every one who has 

 studied, or who hereafter may study, the 



