MOLLY MONAL 585 



must be heard under all circumstances where he best loves to 

 dwell. To compare him with his only rival, the European Nightin- 

 gale, seems to me quite out of place, though I will say that my 

 faith in the powers of the Mocking-bird is so firm, that I believe 

 were he successfully introduced into those countries where the 

 Nightingale flourishes, that princely performer might some day 

 wince as he was obliged to listen to his own most powerful 

 strains poured forth with all their native purity by this king of 

 feathered mockers, the subject of the present notice. 



In America there are no other birds that at all deserve the 

 name of a Mocking-bird. The Magpie often imitates bits of human 

 speech with great accuracy, while the CAT-BIRD sometimes 

 makes a feeble effort to bring out the notes of some of the 

 smaller birds, but they are not to be thought of in connexion with 

 the powerful productions of Mimus polyglottus, while the cat-like 

 mewing note of the former is not in imitation of that animal at 

 all, but only an accidental vocal resemblance. 1 



E. W. SHUFELDT. 



MOLLY and MOLLY-MA WK, corruptions of MALLEMUCK, 

 applied by modern seamen to the smaller kinds of ALBATROS. 



MONAL or MOONAUL (Hind. Mundl), 2 the Anglo-Indian 

 name for birds of the genus Lophophorus, some of the largest of the 



1 Some twelve or fourteen other species of Mimus have been recognized, 

 mostly from South America, where the name of "Calandria" (Lark) is often 

 applied to them, and Mr. Hudson's account (Argent. Orn. i. pp. 5-11) of the 

 three inhabiting the portion of that continent treated of by him is well 

 worth attention ; but M. orpheus seems to be common to some of the 

 Greater Antilles, and M. hilli is peculiar to Jamaica, while the Bahamas have a 

 local race in M. bahamensis. The so-called Mountain Mocking-bird, Oreoscoptes 

 montanus, is a form not very distant from Mimus ; but, according to Mr. 

 Kidgway, it inhabits exclusively the plains (overgrown with Artemisia) of the 

 interior tableland of North America, and is not at all imitative in its notes, so 

 that it is an instance of a misnomer. Of the other genera allied to Mimus, those 

 known in the United States as THRASHEBS, and belonging to the genus Harpo- 

 rhynchus of which six or eight species are found in North America, and are very 

 Thrush -like in their habits have been mentioned above ; but there is only room 

 here to dwell on the CAT-BIRD, Galeoscoptes or Mimus carolinensis, which is an 

 imitator of many sounds, with at the same time peculiar notes of its own, from 

 one of which it has gained its popular name. The sooty-grey colour that, 

 deepening into blackish-brown on the crown and quills, pervades the whole of its 

 plumage the lower tail-coverts, which are of a deep chestnut, excepted renders 

 it a conspicuous object ; and though, for some reason or other, far from being a 

 favourite, it is always willing when undisturbed to become intimate with men's 

 abodes. Besides its range on the American continent it is one of the few species 

 that are resident in Bermuda, while on more than one occasion it is said to have 

 appeared in Europe, though whether as an unaided visitor may be doubted. A. N. 



2 See Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, pp. 443, 444. 



