498 AVES— MOCKING-BIRD. 



voice, capable of almost every modulation, from the mellow tones of the 

 wood thrush, to the savage screams of the bald eagle. In his native groves, 

 mounted on the top of a tall bush, in the dawn of a dewy morning, while 

 the woods are already vocal with a multitude of warbles, his admirable song 

 rises pre-eminent over every competitor. The ear can listen to his music 

 alone. Nor is the strain altogether imitative. His own native notes are 

 bold and full, and varied seemingly beyond all limits. They consist of short 

 expressions of two, three, or five and six syllables, generally interspersed 

 with imitations, all of them uttered with great emphasis and rapidity ; and 

 continued for an hour at a time with undiminished ardor. His expanded 

 wings and tail, glistening with white, and the buoyant gaiety of his action, 

 arresting the eye, as his song* most irresistibly does the ear. He sweeps 

 round with enthusiastic ecstasy, — he mounts and descends as his song 

 swells or dies away — and as Mr Bartram has beautifully expressed it, " He 

 bounds aloft with the celerity of an arrow, as if to recover or recall his very 

 soul, expired in the last elevated strain." While thus exerting himself, a 

 bystander would suppose that the whole feathered tribes had assembled 

 together on a trial for skill — so perfect are his imitations. 



The mocking-bird loses little of the power and energy of his song by con- 

 finement. In his domesticated state, when he commences his career of 

 song, it is impossible to stand by uninterested. He whistles for the dog ; 

 Caesar starts up, wags his tail, and runs to meet his master. He squeaks out 

 like a hurt chicken, and the hen hurries about with hanging wings and bris- 

 tling feathers, clucking to protect her injured brood. The barking of the 

 dog, the mewing of the cat, the creaking of the passing wheelbarrow, follow 

 with great truth and rapidity. He repeats the tune taught him by his mas- 

 ter, though of considerable length, fully and faithfully. He runs over the 

 quiverings of the canary, and the clear whistlings of the Virginia nightin- 

 gale, or red-bird, with such superior execution and effect, that the mortified 

 songsters feel their own inferiority, and become silent, while he seems to 

 triumph in their defeat by redoubling his exertions. 



This excessive fondness for variety, however, in the opinion of some, 

 injures his song. His elevated imitations of the brown thrush, are frequent- 

 ly interrupted by the crowing of cocks ; and the warblings of the blue-bird, 

 which he exquisitely manages, are mingled with the screaming of swallows, 

 or the cackling of hens ; amidst the simple melody of the robin, we are 

 suddenly surprised by the reiterations of the whippoorwill ; while the notes 

 of the kildeer, blue jay, martin, Baltimore, and twenty others, succeed with 

 such imposing reality, that we look round for the originals, and discover, 

 with astonishment, that the sole performer in this singular concert is the 

 admirable bird before us. Both in his native and domesticated state, during 

 the solemn stillness of night, as soon as the moon rises in silent majesty, he 

 begins his delightful solo, and serenades us the livelong night with a full 



