4.4, MOCKINGBIRD. 
well-known .warblings and notes are called to mind only when they are heard again. 
The mimicry is not perfect at the first trial. Say, for instance, a hawk flies past 
shrieking. The Mockingbird, singing in boundless joy on the top of a chimney, has 
already picked up its cry and renders it with somewhat different coloring, but finally, 
after three or four attempts, imitates it with perfect excellence. Very soon the others 
likewise learn it, and in a short time all the Mockingbirds of the neighborhood have 
taken these notes into their songs. 
While singing the male usually perches in the top of a tree, on a gable, on the top 
of a chimney or a lightning rod, &c. Before descending to a definite spot he usually 
bounds into the air, and then alights on his perch. During the performance of his song 
he spreads his wings, expands his tail, and hops and flies around in an ecstasy of 
enthusiasm and joy. In spring the Mockingbird is the personification of unrestrained 
mirth and activity. It always accompanies its song with lively movements. It turns 
its head in a very self-conscious manner to the right and left, jerks its tail occasionally, 
raises its wing over its back, bounds up quickly, and descends again to the same spot, 
all the time singing without interruption. On the 11th of July, 1881, I happened to 
observe an especially fine singer in one of the prettiest gardens of Houston. It flew in 
joyful excitement back and forth from one side of the street to the other, now alighting 
on the ground, now in a tree, then on a fence, and all the time singing its truly 
enchanting notes. It seems as if the Mockingbird were conscious of being the “king 
of song’; it always perches high, and makes itself noticeable everywhere, both in 
populous cities and near the settler’s secluded log-cabin. When not singing it usually 
hops around in the shrubbery and trees, or hunts for inseéts on the ground. 
For a long time ornithologists and lovers of birds disagreed as to the value of 
the Mockingbird’s song before coming to a definite conclusion. Of late even the most 
eminent European students of bird-melody have expressed the opinion that the Mocking- 
bird, as Dr. Carl Russ says, “is to be regarded as the most excellent of all songsters 
among birds.” 
“They are not the soft sounds of the flute or of the hautboy that I hear, but the 
sweeter notes of Nature’s own music. The mellowness of the song, the varied modu- 
lations and graduations, the extent of its compass, the great brilliancy of execution, 
are unrivalled. There is probably no bird in the world that possesses all the musical 
qualifications of this “king of song,”: who has derived all from Nature’s self. Yes, 
reader, all!.... The musical powers of this bird have often been taken notice of by 
European naturalists, and persons who find pleasure in listening to the song of different 
birds whilst in confinement or at large. Some of these persons have described the notes 
of the Nightingale as occasionally fully equal to those of our bird, but to compare her 
essays to the finished talent of the Mockingbird, is, in my opinion, quite absurd.”’ 
Dr. A. E. Brehm adds the following to these words of Audubon: ‘In one point 
I agree with the distinguished naturalist: The performances of the two birds cannot be 
compared, as the one is a warble, the other a song. Each one has its own peculiar 
charms. The warble of the Nightingale has the rounded finish of the strophes, the 
exulting joy of tone, the Mockinghbird’s song possesses extraordinary variety, a really 
unbroken change of the separate parts, hardly recognized as articulated, and a really 
