TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 91 



Our Texas Mocking Bird and Nest 



Of all the myriads of Texas 

 warblers none is as widespread 

 and as popular as our "mocking 

 bird." None can imitate the voice 

 of other birds and of animals better 

 than our Tejcas warbler; none 

 of them have been popularized 

 oftener by bards and musical 

 composers; none oftener caged and 

 raised to deligfit the human heart 

 with their inimitable song, and 

 none, perhaps, have been more 



him the "Texas Nightingale" or 

 the "Queen of all Songsters" there 

 being but one more singer — the 

 German Nightingale — that can. 

 break a lance with our Texas 

 mocking bird. 



Not only on the open prairie 

 plains, but nearly equally as often 

 our songster is encountered in 

 the heart of towns and cities, in 

 parks, gardens, fields, meadows- 

 and even before our own doors and 



The Mocking Bird, Quern of Texas Songsters and Others — A Typical Prairie Bird* 



Scene Near San Antonio 

 (From Nature, By the Writer) 



neglected authors in general 

 than our mpckihg bird. Let's 

 give our "Queen of Texas Songsters 

 therefore a little space and consid- 

 eration. 



Scientifically the mocking bird 

 is called "Mimus polyglottis" — 

 the "multi-tongued songster" — and 

 ornithologists appropriately call 



windows, everywhere the mocking 

 bird makes itself "at honae" during 

 summer as well as winter, and 

 everywhere they dtlight the human 

 soul with their delightful song: 



At the advance of the cold 

 winter months the majority of 

 mocking ^irds migrate to more trop- 

 ical zones; many, however, also. 



