THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 167 



the native birds of England. According to this 

 writer, who has perhaps studied the music of birds 

 more critically than anyone else, the song of the 

 nightingale, when printed in the notation of 

 ordinary human music, is like a piano solo. It 

 is made up of a score or so of different strains, 

 with trills and crescendos, and all executed in so 

 inimitable a manner that it is unrecognisable when 

 repeated on a musical instrument or the human 

 voice. One of these strains, curiously enough, is 

 identical with the song of a certain bush-warbler 

 of western Canada as if the English vocalist had 

 plagiarised the song of its humbler cousin in com- 

 piling its incomparable repertoire. The song of 

 the mocking-bird is a magnificent medley, made 

 up of the calls, trills, twitters, warbles, warnings, 

 and love-songs, of a score or more of other birds. 

 I have heard this bird along the Solomon and 

 Arkansas valleys repeat in the most perfect manner 

 the notes and songs of the pewee, purple martin, 

 kingbird, flicker, blue jay, catbird, canary, crow, 

 English sparrow, red-headed woodpecker, quail, 

 cardinal, cuckoo, robin, red-wings, grackle, meadow- 

 lark, night-hawk, whip-poor-will, besides many 

 other calls and notes, perhaps of birds I did not 

 know. In the case of some of these birds the 

 mocker made all of the different sounds of each 

 bird. The song of the mocking-bird is delivered 

 at any time, day or night, and generally in a state 

 of high ecstasy and excitement, the performer 

 flying from tree to tree and from house-top to 

 barn-top, occasionally throwing himself into the 



