6 TURDID^E. 



itself on the summit of a bush or tree, and occasionally, as if carried 

 away by excitement, it darts upwards three or four yards into the air, 

 and then drops back on to its perch. So varied are its notes, and so 

 frequently suggestive of the language of other species, that the listener 

 finds himself continually asking whether the Calandria is really an 

 original singer or merely a cunning plagiarist, able to steal scraps of 

 fifty different melodies and to blend them in some sort into one complete 

 composition. As a whole the song is in character utterly unlike that of 

 any other bird (birds of the Mimus genus, of course, excepted), for the 

 same notes are never repeated twice in the same order ; and though the 

 Calandria has many favourite notes, he is able to vary every one of 

 them a hundred ways. Sometimes the whole song seems to be made 

 up of imitations of other singers, with slight variations and not of 

 singers only, for now there will be clear flute-like notes, only to be 

 succeeded by others reedy and querulous as the hunger-calls of a young 

 Finch ; then there will be pretty flourishes or Thrush-like phrases, and 

 afterwards screams, as of a frightened Swallow hurrying through the 

 sky to announce the approach of a Falcon ; or perhaps piteous outcries, 

 as of a chicken in the clutches of a Kite. 



Nevertheless Azara says truly that the Calandria does not mock or 

 mimic the songs of other birds ; for though the style and intonation of 

 a score of different singers, chatterers, and screamers are reproduced by 

 him, one can never catch a song, or even a portion of a song, of which 

 he is able to say that it is absolutely like that of any other species. 

 This much, however, can be said of the Calandria : he has a passion for 

 endless variety in singing, a capacity for varying his tones to almost 

 any extent, and a facility for catching the notes of other birds, which, 

 in the Virginian Mocking-bird of North, and in the White-banded 

 Mocking-bird of South America, has been developed into that marvellous 

 faculty these two species possess of faithfully imitating the songs of all 

 other birds. The two species I have just named, while mockers of the 

 songs of other birds, also retain their own original music their " natural 

 song," as an American ornithologist calls it. 



The Calandria makes its nest in the middle of a large bush or low 

 thorn-tree standing by itself; it is deep, like the nest of a Thrush in 

 form, built of sticks, thorns, and grass, and lined with thistle-down or 

 some other soft material. The eggs are four or five, pale blue, and 

 thickly marked with reddish-brown spots. 



When the nest is approached the parent birds demonstrate their 

 anxiety by uttering loud harsh angry notes. 



It is generally believed that the Calandria will not live in captivity. 

 I have, however, seen a few individuals in cages, but they never sang. 



