194 THE ART OF TRAINING ANIMALS. 



secluded corner he would sing to it an air a hundred times over, 

 till the intelligent biped had grasped the melody. Soon the in- 

 teresting creature commenced to quacli little tunes, and at the 

 end of six months could correctly repeat a considerable portion 

 of the '■^ Femme a Barbe." The owner of the-feathered songster 

 is going to Paris to exhibit his bird. 



Mocking birds are valued highly for their power of acquiring 

 the notes of almost every other bird, imitating various sounds 

 and even learning to talk. They should be taken when veiy 

 young J birds old enough to be caught in traps either never sing 

 at all, or only in an inferior manner. Their tuition consists 

 merely in giving them the opportunity to hear whatever it is 

 desired to have them learned. They usually begin to sing 

 when two months old, and some bird fanciers think they im- 

 prove in strength and fullness of tone when kept some years. 

 It is less difficult to keep mocking birds than is generally sup- 

 posed. A correspondent of Haney's Journal gives the follow^ 

 ing as the best method of capturing and rearing these birds : 



" Take the trouble about the first of May to take a tramp 

 through the woods and along the hedges until you find a nest, 

 and be sure it is the right kind. Do not touch the nest, but 

 visit it every few days, and when the young are hatched and 

 can open their eyes and mouths, take the nest and birds home 

 with you and set them in a cage. You then prepare some corn 

 meal very soft, by scalding, and feed them every half hour by 

 putting it in then* mouths ; when hungry they will open their 

 mouths and cry if you approach them, then is the time to feed 

 them J when they become strong enough to hop about the cage 

 you may then put water and the meal in the cage and they will 

 soon learn to feed themselves. The cage should be cleaned out 

 at least every other morning, and fresh dry clean sand put on 

 the, floor. The regular feed of the birds should be corn meal 

 and hard boiled eggs mashed together with a little water; 

 scalded fresh beef is very fine for them, also "a few polk berries 

 occasionally, all kinds of fruits, bread that is not * short,^ meat 

 not salt ; never* give them anything sweet. I nearly lost a fine 

 bird by allowing it to get some sour molasses. The best medi- 

 cine for the mocking bird is two or three spiders. Be sure to 

 put a pan of fresh water in the cage every day, and as he is a 

 great washer and invariably sings better if you give him plenty 

 of water and spiders. The bird should never be let out of the 

 cage, and he then does not know what liberty is. I now have 

 one five years old, who will not come out of the cage if the door 

 be left open all day ; he can not be bought for $100. He has 

 been reared according to the above method^ and; besides this, I 



