688 The Sparrow-like Birds 



where not only can he imitate any individual of the host of native songsters 

 about him, but vary the strain with those familiar sounds heard about the house 

 and barnyard. To see that little feathered being so brimful of ecstasy, replete 

 with action and animation, drooping his wings, spreading his tail, so buoyant 

 as hardly to be able to retain his perch, while the air is actually filled with his 

 inimitable musical performances, is a sight not likely to be forgotten. Clearly 

 and with the greatest possible accuracy and rapidity, and with a mellow strength 

 even exceeding the originals, he utters the notes and calls of twenty or more 

 birds in succession, ranging all the way from the plaintive air of the Bluebirds 

 to the harsh, discordant cries of the Jays, Sparrows, Hawks, and even with 

 equal compass the vociferations of an Eagle. Catching breath and tossing 

 himself lightly into the air above his perch, he alarms the entire feathered com- 

 munity assembled by his imitating the cries of a wounded bird in the talons of 

 a Hawk; this is followed perhaps by the crowing of a Cock or the vociferous 

 note of a Whippoorwill, and the very incongruity appears to put his feathered 

 listeners to shame at the hoax." As might be imagined, such varied powers 

 of mimicry make him prized as a cage bird, and, captivity seeming hardly to 

 diminish these accomplishments, he is frequently confined, though to be fully 

 appreciated the Mockingbird must be heard in his chosen setting. 



All of the members of this genus appear to possess in greater or less degree 

 this marvelous faculty of reproducing the notes of their feathered companions, 

 in addition to which some at least possess matchless songs of their own. Such 

 an one the White-banded Mockingbird (M. triurus) Mr. Hudson tells 

 enthusiastically of having heard in bleak, far-away Patagonia, a song which 

 he believed the superior of that of any feathered songster on the globe. 



On the ground that they possess a larger, more compressed bill and a much 

 longer tarsus, the Mockingbirds of the Galapagos Archipelago, of which there 

 are upward of a dozen forms, have been separated as a distinct genus (Nesomi- 

 mus}\ their habits are presumably similar to those of the Mockingbirds in 

 general. 



Sage Thrasher. Allied to these, but having the tail shorter than the wing 

 and nearly even, is the Sage Thrasher, or Mountain Mockingbird (Oroscoptes 

 montanus), which inhabits the great sage-brush plains of the western United 

 States, chiefly within the Great Basin, retiring to Mexico in winter. It is between 

 eight and nine inches long, brownish gray above, the wings with two narrow 

 white bands and whitish heavily streaked with dusky below. It is very terrestrial 

 in its habits, running gracefully on the ground much after the manner of the 

 American Robin, or frequenting the low sage-brush, upon the summit of which 

 the males usually mount to sing. The song is not by any means the equal of 

 that of the Mockingbirds, having much of the quality of that of the Brown 

 Thrasher, or Catbird, though it is weaker, "more varied and longer sustained 

 as well as superior in sweetness and delicacy of tone." They build a large bulky 

 nest of sticks, strips of bark, rootlets, etc., artfully concealed in thick sage- 

 bushes, and lay from three to five greenish blue eggs which are thickly spotted 

 with brown. 



