68 * THE MOST GRACEFUL BIRD. 



thick and roughly constructed, three and a half 

 inches in inside diameter, made of string, rags, 

 newspaper, cotton wadding, bark, Spanish moss, 

 and feathers, lined with fine root fibre, I think. 

 The feathers were not inside for lining, but out- 

 side on the upper edge. It was, like the foun- 

 dation, so frail that, though carefully managed, 

 it could only be kept in shape by a string around 

 it, even after the mass of twigs had been re- 

 moved. I have a last year's nest, made of ex- 

 actly the same materials, but in a much more 

 substantial manner ; so perhaps the cedar-tree 

 birds were not so skillful builders as some of 

 their family. 



The mocking-bird's movements, excepting in 

 flight, are the perfection of grace ; not even 

 the cat-bird can rival him in airy lightness, in 

 easy elegance of motion. In alighting on a 

 fence, he does not merely come down upon it ; 

 his manner is fairly poetical. He flies a little 

 too high, drops like a feather, touches the perch 

 lightly with his feet, balances and tosses upward 

 his tail, often quickly running over the tips of 

 half a dozen pickets before he rests. Passing 

 across the yard, he turns not to avoid a taller 

 tree or shrub, nor does he go through it ; he 

 simply bounds over, almost touching it, as if 

 for pure sport. In the matter of bounds the 

 mocker is without a peer. The upward spring 



