66 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS. 



emasculated Mexican in his native South. I shall take 

 some occasion to prove this position more at large. 



But, my pursuit did not end with the day. At night I 

 would retire to my room, as if to bed wait until the night- 

 song of the mocking bird began, which was usually about 

 eleven o'clock. Then, disguised in a cloak and slouched 

 hat, would let myself down from the window of my bed-room 

 and hie away to the fields and meadows ; for the moonlight 

 was tremulous already with the silver arrows of those notes 

 that came now, all at once, as if Cytherias' quiver had been 

 emptied down the air, and then one after one would float in 

 an ^Eolian sigh upon the ear, or in a sharp, ringing hiss 

 go darting by ! 0, the wonder of those songs beneath the 

 moon ! The summer moonlight of southern Kentucky is 

 not surpassed in the world for brilliancy and a peculiar soft 

 transparency which causes the most striking contrasts of 

 light and shade. The trees throw down shadows as black 

 as solid midnight, while their tops, toward the moon, seem 

 inspired of beams. Every object is thus startingly defined. 

 The smallest blade of grass stands out haloed in relief of its 

 own black shadow. Objects are thus defined at astonishing 

 distances, and, for the same cause, sounds transmitted with 

 almost painful distinctness. With such accessories no music 

 I have ever heard on earth, or expect to hear, has so affected 

 me as the marvellous night-song of my favorite mocking 

 bird. 



It must be known that these creatures differ from each 

 other as do men and women, in their vocal powers, and there 

 is usually one bird in a neighborhood that supremely sur- 

 passes all the rest. It is another most remarkable fact that 

 all other mocking birds retire from the immediate neighbor- 

 hood of this acknowledged monarch, to such a distance that 

 you can hear but the faintest note from them in the pauses of 

 his song, and that sounds as if they but prolonged its echo. 



I soon detected the monarch from the rest, and, as they 

 never change their night-haunts much, unless repeatedly dis- 



