the talents of the Mocking Bh-cl are not confined to 

 that of imitation, his own song is melodious and 

 full of vigour ; but suddenly, in the midst of a beau- 

 tifullj^-cadenced trill he will stop short and give 

 way to a fancy for imitation, and this improvisation 

 mixed with plagiarisms will often last for an entire 

 hour. With wings extended, and his tail, speckled 

 with white, spread out like a fan, he frisks and preens 

 himself in a manner most charming to the eye, 

 whilst the ear is astonished and delighted at the voice. 

 Nothing is more curious than to watch this bird 

 pirouetting, as if he was seized with madness, or a 

 passing fit of frenzy. Audubon, the celebrated 

 American naturalist, declares that the Mocking Bird 

 " rises sometimes into the air with the rapidity of an 

 arrow, as if flying after his soul which he had allowed 

 to escape with his song." A blind man listening to 

 the Mocking Bird might easily fancy that he was 

 present at a concert in which all the birds of the 

 air were competing for the supremacy of song, as the 

 shepherds did in the Eclogues of Theocritus and 

 Virgil. Besides, not only are the naturalist and the 

 sportsman often deceived by the imitations of the 

 Mocking Bird, but the birds themselves who swarm 

 around him are uncertain whether to take his mock- 

 ing voice for truth or falsehood. Sometimes you 

 will see them, filled with alarm, take refuge in a 

 thicket. And why ? The Mocking Bird has imi- 



