354 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



closed, and never interrupted me once with his hilarious outbursts, so 

 I was encouraged to persevere. 



After several weeks of this, I was one day called by the maid 

 "Come quick," she said "the bird is singing your tune." I went with 

 her to the door and peeped in. There sat Mockie on the back of a chair 

 singing over to himself, but perfectly correct, the whole strain. He 

 sang it very softly, and seemed shy about his accomplishment, for as 

 soon as he saw he was observed he interrupted the sweet notes with an 

 impatient "chack, chack." After a few days he gained confidence and 

 sang out boldly and loud, even before an audience of strangers. But 

 he was always prone to interrupt himself mischievously, at the very 

 climax of the song, with some droll squawk, the imitation of a wheel- 

 barrow, or other uncouih sound. This song he never forgot till his 

 death, and taught it to his young birds, who, however, never equalled 

 him in their performance of it. Another indication of his ear for mu- 

 sic was that he usually kept silent while the piano was being played, 

 and seemed to listen with interest, as he had done while he was learn- 

 ing the song. Sometimes he would sing a sort of accompaniment of 

 soft, single notes, quite different from his usual song. These were 

 in harmony with the piece played, and I was so much struck with this 

 fact that I wrote them down on the score of a Beethoven Sonata. The 

 notes were not continuous, but came in tentatively now and then, as a 

 novice with the violin might try to strike a note in harmony from time 

 to time. I believe if a simple composition had been played to him 

 often enough, these notes would have assumed definite form, and the 

 bird would have appeared with assurance in the role of a composer. 



The fact that he still sang the song characteristic of the race, though 

 taken so early from the nest, might be thought to have some bearing 

 on the vexed question discussed by Lloyd Morgan in "Habit and In- 

 stinct" on whether song is an inherited instinct or learned by tradition, 

 from the parents. But it should be remembered that night and day 

 from the time he chipped the egg till the Indian kidnapped him, he had 

 heard his father's song, which may have well made an indelible im- 

 pression on so retentive a memory. 



