60 ORGANS OF VOICE. 



supposed that it must have been bred near the spot, and 

 learned the cry from hearing the cocks*. 



The Goat-sucker, Night-jar, Hawkmoth, (or, as it is 

 better known in many places, the Wheel-Bird, owing to 

 its making a sound much resembling a spinning-wheel,) 

 is another bird not uncommon in this country during 

 the summer months, frequenting heaths and commons. 

 The best time to hear it is about dusk, when it may be 

 cautiously approached, and discovered sitting with its 

 head downwards, repeating, for a considerable time, its 

 rough jarring cry. 



In foreign countries, however, there are birds possess- 

 ing a far greater power of imitation. We need scarcely 

 mention the Mocking-bird of North America at the head 

 of the list ; so widely spread over the world is its cha- 

 racter, not only having the power of imitating the note 

 of every bird it hears, but also that of animals, arid 

 other sounds. It can bark like a dog, mew like a cat ; 

 then all of a sudden make the exact noise of a trundling- 

 wheelbarrow; sometimes it will call the hens together 

 by screaming like a wounded chicken; or entice the 

 house-dog from the fire-side by whistling for it in its 

 master's well-known summons. 



There is a species of Crow in India (Corvus leucoto- 

 phus,) which assembles in flocks of about twenty or 

 thirty, in the recesses of forests, and whose note so 

 exactly resembles the human voice in loud laughing, 

 that a person ignorant of the real cause, would fancy 

 that a very merry party were close at hand. 



There is also a species of Skylark, in India, whose 

 powers of imitation are described as astonishing. One 

 of these birds had so completely learned the wailing cry 

 of a Kite soaring in the air, that although the Lark's cage 

 was in a room, and within a few feet of the listener, he 

 could scarcely persuade himself that the cry he heard 

 did not, in reality, proceed from a distant Kite. They 

 are taught by being carried daily to the fields and 



* See Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. iv. p. 433. 



