MOCKING-BIRD. 19 



acholar, who is seldom inattentive, has completely acquired his lesson. 

 The best singing birds, however, ift my own opinion, are those that have 

 been reared in the country, and educated under the tuition of the 

 feathered choristers of the surrounding fields, groves, woods, and 

 meadows. 



The plumage of the Mocking-bird, though none of the homeliest, has 

 nothing gaudy or brilliant in it, and, had he nothing else to recommend 

 him, would scarcely entitle him to notice, but his figure is well propor- 

 tioned, and even handsome. The ease, elegance and rapidity of his 

 movements, the animation of his eye, and the intelligence he displays 

 in listening and laying up lessons from almost every species of the fea- 

 thered creation within his hearing, are really surprising, and mark the 

 peculiarity of his genius. To these qualities we may add that of a voice 

 full, strong, and musical, and capable of almost every modulation, from 

 the clear mellow tones of the Wood Thrush, to the savage scream of the 

 Bald Eagle. In measure and accent he faithfully follows his originals. 

 In force and sweetness of expression he greatly improves upon them. 

 In his native groves, mounted on the top of a tall bush or half-grown 

 tree, in the dawn of dewy morning, while the woods are already vocal 

 with a multitude of warblers, his admirable song rises pre-eminent over 

 every competitor. The ear can listen to his music alone, to which that 

 of all the others seems a mere accompaniment. Neither is this strain 

 altogether imitative. His own native notes, which are easily distin- 

 guishable by such as are well acquainted with those of our various song 

 birds, are bold and full, and varied seemingly beyond all limits. They 

 consist of short expressions of two, three, or at the most five or six 

 syllables ; generally interspersed with imitations, and all of them uttered 

 with great emphasis and rapidity ; and continued, with undiminished 

 ardor, for half an hour, or an hour at a time. His expanded wings and 

 tail, glistening with white, and the buoyant gayety of his action, arrest- 

 ing 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 my friend 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 destitute of sight, would suppose that the 

 whole feathered tribes had assembled together, on a trial of skill ; each 

 striving to produce his utmost effect ; so perfect are his imitations. He 

 many times deceives the sportsman, and sends him in search of birds 

 that perhaps are not within miles of him ; but whose notes he exactly 

 imitates : even birds themselves are frequently imposed on by this ad- 

 mirable mimic, and are decoyed by the fancied calls of their mates ; or 



* Travels, p. 32. Introd. 



