322 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



such peculiar modulations of voice, as sometimes to 

 seem at a considerable distance, and instantly as if 

 just beside you; now on this hand, now on that; so 

 that from these manoeuvres of ventriloquism, you are 

 utterly at a loss to ascertain from what particular 

 spot or quarter they proceed. If the weather be 

 mild and serene, with clear moonlight, he continues 

 gabbling in the same strange dialect, with very little 

 intermission during the whole night, as if disputing 

 with his own echoes ; but probably with a design of 

 inviting the passing females to his retreat, for when 

 the season is further advanced they are seldom heard 

 during the night. 



" While the female chat is sitting, the cries of the 

 male are still more loud and incessant. When once 

 aware that you have seen him, he is less solicitous to 

 conceal himself, and will sometimes mount up into 

 the air, almost perpendicularly, to the height of thirty 

 or forty feet, with his legs hanging ; descending, as 

 he rose, by repeated jerks, as if highly irritated, or, 

 as is vulgarly said, ' dancing mad/ All this noise and 

 gesticulation we must attribute to his extreme affec- 

 tion for his mate and young ; and when we consider 

 the great distance which in all probability he comes, 

 the few young produced at a time, and that seldom 

 more than once in the season, we can see the wisdom 

 of Providence very manifestly in the ardency of his 

 passions*." 



We have introduced this description more to show 

 the variety of note and voice which actually occurs 

 in a bird, than as exhibiting an instance even of 

 alleged imitation ; for though it is said some of the 

 sounds uttered by the polyglot-chat are " something 

 like the barking of young puppies/' and " others not 

 unlike the mewing of a cat," it is not averred, as it 

 is in the case of the bird called the mocking-bird, 

 that these sounds are derived from imitation. 

 *Am. Ornith.i. 92. 



