178 WOOD NOTES WILD. 
Im1TATION. — Contin. 
“How much was my wonder and admiration increased by 
the discovery that only one sweet singer had produced all these 
diverse strains! The discovery was only made when he began 
to repeat songs of species that never visit Patagonia. I knew 
then that I was at last listening to the famed White Mocking- 
bird, just returned from his winter travels, and repeating in 
this southern region the notes he had acquired in sub-tropical 
forests a thousand miles away. These imitations at length 
ceased, after which the sweet vocalist resumed his own match- 
less song once more. I ventured then to creep a little nearer, 
and at length caught sight of him not fifteen yards away. I 
then found that the pleasure of listening to its melody was 
greatly enhanced when I could at the same time see the 
bird, so carried away with rapture does he seem while singing, 
so many and so beautiful are the gestures and motions with 
which his notes are accompanied. When I first heard this 
bird sing I felt convinced that no other feathered songster on 
the globe could compare with it, for besides the faculty of 
reproducing the songs of other species, which it possesses in 
common with the Virginian Mocking-bird, it has a song of its 
own, which I believe matchless: in this belief I was con- 
firmed when, shortly after hearing it, I visited England, and 
found of how much less account than this Patagonian bird, 
which no poet has ever praised, were the sweetest of the famed 
melodists of the old world.” 
Room must be made for another of this wonderful fam- 
ily, one that on occasion disdains all mimicry and sings 
a glorious song all his own (Mimus polyglottus, Bote). 
“It is remarkable that in those serenades and midnight solos which 
have obtained for the Mocking-bird the name of Nightingale, and which 
he commences with a rapid, stammering prelude, as if he had awaked, 
frightened out of sleep, he never sings his song of mimicry ; his music at 
this time is his own. It is full of variety, with a fine compass, but less 
