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. Inhis 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 iw 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 ata 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, 
Cesar 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 ine 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, 
witn astonishment, that the sole performer in this singular concert is the 
admirable bird before us. Both in his native and domesticated state, during 
the solermn stillness of night, as soon as the moon rises in silent majesty, he 
begins his delightful solo, 2nd serenades us the livelong night with a full 
\ 
