THE MOCKING BIRD. 371 



The Mocking 'Bird of America is universally allowed to be the 

 most wonderful of all songsters, as it not only possesses a very fine 

 and melodious voice, but is also endowed with the capacity for imitat- 

 ing the notes of any other bird, and, indeed, of immediately reprodu- 

 cing with the most astonishing exactness any sound which it may hear. 



All persons who come within the sound of the Mocking Bird's voice are 

 fascinated with the thrilling strains that are poured without effort from 

 the melodious throat, and every professed 

 ornithologist who has heard this wonder- 

 ful bird has exhausted the powers of his 

 language in endeavoring to describe the 

 varied and entrancing melody of the 

 Mocking Bird. Within the compass of 

 one single throat the whole feathered 

 race seems to be comprised, for the 

 Mocking Bird can with equal ease im- 

 itate, or rather reproduce, the sweet 

 and gentle twittering of the blue-bird, 

 the rich full song of the thrush, or the 

 harsh, ear-piercing scream of the eagle. 



Let it but approach the habitation '^"^ Mocking^Bird {Mimus 

 of man, and it straightway adds a new ^ 



series of sounds to its already vast store, laying up in its most re- 

 tentive memory the various noises that are produced by man and his 

 surroundings, and introducing among its other imitations the barking 

 of dogs, the harsh " setting " of saws, the whirring buzz of the millstone, 

 the everlasting clack of the hoppers, the dull heavy blow of the mallet, 

 and the cracking of splitting timbers, the fragments of songs whistled 

 by the laborers, the creaking of ungreased wheels, the neighing of 

 horses, the plaintive " baa " of the sheep, and the deep lowing of the 

 oxen, together with all the innumerable and accidental sounds which 

 are necessarily produced through human means. Unfortunately, 

 the bird is rather apt to spoil his own wonderful song by a sudden in- 

 troduction of one of these inharmonious sounds, so that the listener, 

 whose ear is being delighted with a succession of the softest and richest- 

 toned vocalisms, will suddenly be electrified with the loud shriek of the 

 angry hawk or the grating whir of the grindstone. 



The nest of this bird is usually placed in some thick bush, and is in 

 general very carefully concealed. Sometimes, however, when the bird 

 builds in localities where it knows that it will be protected from human 

 interference, it is quite indifferent about the concealment of its home, 

 and trusts to its own prowess for the defence of its mate and young. 

 The nest is always placed at a short distance from the ground, being 

 seldom seen at an elevation of more than ei^rht feet. 



