276 A BOOK-LOVER S HOLIDAYS 



where they are plentiful, as in some Italian 

 woods, can compare in strength and ecstasy 

 and passion, in volume and intricate change 

 and continuity, with the challenging love-songs 

 of many mockers, rivalling one another, as they 

 perch and balance and spring upward and float 

 downward through the branches of live-oak or 

 magnolia, after sunset and before sunrise, and 

 in the warm, still, brilliant moonlight of spring 

 and early summer. 



There were other birds. The soldierly look 

 ing red-headed woodpeckers, in their strik 

 ing black, red, and white uniform, were much 

 in evidence. Gaudy painted finches, or &quot;non 

 pareils,&quot; were less conspicuous only because of 

 their small size. Blue jays had raised their 

 young in front of the house, and, as I was in 

 formed, had been successfully beaten off by the 

 mockers and thrashers when they attempted 

 assaults on the eggs and nestlings of the latter. 

 Purple martins darted through the air. King 

 birds chased the big grackles and the numerous 

 small fish-crows not so very much bigger than 

 the grackles which uttered queer, hoarse 

 croakings. A pair of crested flycatchers had 

 their nest in a hollow in a tree; the five boldly 

 marked eggs rested, as usual, partly on a shed 

 snake skin. How, I wonder, through the im- 



