short while quite vigorously ; but they are 

 soon silent. In the Creole country you 

 may hear them in full song from February 

 till June. I found some of them nesting 

 as early as the loth of February on the 

 Gulf-coast in 1890. The mulberry-blooms 

 were unseasonably forward, and the frost, 

 an unusually late one, caught the ripe 

 berries on the 26. of March. The mock- 

 ing-birds had been singing more than a 

 month when this happened. Suddenly 

 the multitude of gay revelers became 

 dumb ; not a voice cut the crisp, bracing 

 air. Curious to find out what the birds 

 were doing, I went into the orchards and 

 groves to spy upon them, visiting all the 

 nests that I knew of. In nearly every case 

 a female moqueur stood on the rim of the 

 nest, or close beside it, and not far away 

 a male, muffled and disconsolate-looking, 

 poised himself on one leg, the very em- 

 bodiment of silence and frigidity. Next 

 day the sun shone vigorously and the 

 wind came up from the Gulf. Then it was 

 strange to see the birds flitting and singing 

 in the blackened and wilted tree-tops. 

 92 



