HAUNTS OF THE MOCKING-BIRD. 7 



itary music, descending to us by immemorial 

 custom. Its notes are echoing within us, and 

 we feel their authenticity though in fact we 

 know as little about the bird as chemists do 

 about Geber. How shall we doubt that the 

 bird whose song inspired Keats to write that 

 masterpiece of English poetry is indeed a 

 wonderful musician ? Shakespeare and rare 

 Ben Jonson and Burns and Scott and Shelley 

 and Byron heard this same song ; it was just 

 as clear and sweet as it is now when Chaucer 

 was telling his rhymed tales, when Robin 

 Hood was in the greenwood, even when the 

 Romans made their first invasion. 



In a general way, we do not think of the 

 nightingale having a nest and rearing a brood 

 and dying. It is simply the incomparable 

 nightingale, philomela, rossignol, or whatever 

 the name may be, a bird that has been sing- 

 ing in rose-gardens and orange-orchards and 

 English woods night after night for thousands 

 of years without a rival. Its song is to the 

 imagination of all of us 



"L'hymne flottant des nuits d'ete." 



as Lamartine has expressed it. So it can 

 easily be understood how hard a struggle our 

 American mocking-bird is going to have before 

 it reaches a place in the world's esteem beside 

 the nightingale. Nor is it my purpose to do 

 anything with a special view to aid it in the 

 struggle ; but I have studied our bird in all 

 its haunts and in all seasons, with a view to a 

 most intimate acquaintance with its habits, its 

 song, and its character. 



To begin with, the name mocking-bird, is a 

 heavy load for any bird to bear. Unmusical 



