CALANDRIA MOCKING-BIRD 7 



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 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 in reproducing the notes 

 of other birds, which, in the Virginian Mocking-bird 

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



