8 TURDID.E. 



surprised and delighted with them ; f or, after a silent pause, he repeats 

 them again and again a vast number of times, as if to impress them on 

 his memory. When he once more resumes his varied singing, for hours, 

 and sometimes for days, the expression he has discovered is still a 

 favourite one, and recurs with the greatest frequency. But this is not 

 all. If the new note or phrase happens to be a very striking one, it 

 immediately takes the fancy of all the other birds within hearing, and 

 often in a small thicket there will be a dozen or twenty birds near 

 together, each sitting perched on the summit of his own bush. After 

 the new wonderful note has been sounded they all become silent and 

 attentive, reminding one in their manner of a caged Parrot listening to 

 a sound it is trying to learn. Presently they learn it, and are as pleased 

 with its acquisition as if they had discovered it themselves, repeating it 

 incessantly. I noticed this curious habit of the bird many times, and 

 on one occasion I found that for three entire days all the birds in a 

 small thicket I used to visit every day did nothing but repeat inces- 

 santly two or three singular notes which they had borrowed from one 

 of their number. The constant repetition of this one sound had a 

 strongly irritating effect on me ; but a day or two later they had appa- 

 rently got tired of it themselves, and had resumed their usual varied 

 singing. 



This bird usually sits still upon the summit of a bush when singing, 

 and its music is heard in all seasons and in all weathers from dawn 

 till after dark : as a rule it sings in a leisurely unexcited manner, 

 remaining silent for some time after every five or six or a dozen notes, 

 and apparently listening to his brother-performers. These snatches of 

 melody often seem like a prelude or promise of something better coming ; 

 there is often in them such exquisite sweetness and so much variety 

 that the hearer is ever wishing for a fuller measure, and still the bird 

 opens his bill to delight and disappoint him, as if not yet ready to 

 display his whole power. 



8. MIMUS TBIURUS (VieilL). 

 (WHITE-BANDED MOCKING-BIRD.) 



[PLATE I.] 



Mimus triurus, Sol. et Salv. Nomencl p. 3 ; Hudson, P. Z. 8. 1872, p. 539 (Rio 

 Negro) ; White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 593 (Buenos Ayres) ; JBurm. La-Plata Reise, 

 ii. p. 475 (Mendoza, Cordova, and Tucuman) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. vi. p. 342. 



Description. Above grey, brown on the rump ; beneath light grey, white on 

 the belly ; wing black, crossed with a broad white baud ; tail white, except the 



