IMITATION AND MIMICRY. 329 



of the feathered creation within his hearing 1 , are 

 really surprising 1 , and mark the peculiarity of his 

 genius. To these qualities we may add that of a 

 voice, full, strong, and musical, and capable of 

 almost every modulation, from the clear mellow 

 tones of the wood-thrush, to the savage scream of 

 the bald eagle. In measure and accent he faithfully 

 follows his originals ; in force and sweetness of ex- 

 pression he greatly improves upon them. In his 

 native groves, mounted on the top of a tall bush or 

 half-grown tree, in the dawn of the dewy morning, 

 while the woods are already vocal with a multitude 

 of warblers, his admirable song rises pre-eminent 

 over every competitor. The ear can listen to his 

 music alone, to which that of all the others seems a 

 mere accompaniment. Neither is his strain altoge- 

 ther imitative. His own native notes, which are 

 easily distinguishable by such as are well acquainted 

 with those of our various song-birds, are bold and 

 full, and varied seemingly beyond all limits. They 

 consist of short expressions of two, three, or at the 

 most five or six syllables, generally interspersed 

 with imitations, and all of them uttered with great 

 emphasis and rapidity ; and continued, with undi- 

 minished ardour, for half an hour, or an hour, at a 

 time. His expanded wings and tail, glistening with 

 white, and the buoyant gaiety of his action, arresting 

 the eye, as his song irresistibly does the ear. He 

 sweeps round with enthusiastic ecstasy ; he mounts 

 and descends as his song swells or dies away ; and 

 as my friend Mr. Bartram has beautifully expressed 

 it, ' He bounds aloft with the celerity of an arrow, 

 as if to recover or recall his very soul, expired in the 

 last elevated strain *.' While thus exerting himself, 

 a bystander, destitute of sight, would suppose that 

 the whole feathered tribe had assembled together, on 

 * Travels, p. 32, Introd. 



2 F 3 



