HAUNTS OF THE MOCKING-BIRD. 9 



hence in some neighborhoods, I have found a 

 strong prejudice existing against the mocking- 

 bird on account of the fiendish habits of the 

 shrike. 



A mountain lad once led me over a con- 

 siderable mountain and down into a wild dell 

 to show me a nest in a thorn tree, where he 

 was sure I should find every evidence that a 

 mocking-bird was a soulless monster, murder- 

 ing little pee-wee fly-catchers and warblers, 

 and impaling them on thorns out of sheer 

 wantonness. I felt sure it was a shrike, but 

 the boy said he knew better. Didn't he know 

 a mocking-bird when he saw it? He had 

 heard it sing and " mock " all the birds in the 

 thickets around, and had also seen it doing its 

 brutal work. Boys are sometimes very close 

 and reliable in their observations, and this one 

 was an inveterate hunter, and so stoutly as- 

 serted his knowledge that I was induced to 

 test his accuracy by going with him to the 

 place he called Mocking-Bird Hollow. Of 

 course the nest was that of a shrike, but a 

 number of mocking-birds were breeding in the 

 immediate vicinity, hence the mistake. 



The mocking-bird does not appear to be a 

 strictly migratory bird, its range being much 

 narrower than that of the brown-thrush, the 

 cat-bird, and the wood-thrush. I have never 

 been able to find it a regular visitant in the 

 West north of Tennessee, though I have no 

 reason to doubt that it comes at times much 

 farther, even into the Ohio valley. In the 

 mountain valleys it is extremely wary and shy, 

 its habits approaching very close to those 

 attributed to the nightingale of England. It 

 chooses lonely and almost inaccessible nest- 



