110 MOCKING BIRD. 
gravel, is found very proper for them after they are grownup. Should 
the bird at any time appear sick or dejected, a few spiders thrown in 
to him will generally remove these symptoms of disease. 
If the young bird is designed to be taught by an old one, the best 
singer should be selected for this office, and no other allowed to be 
beside him. Or, if by the bird organ, or mouth-whistling, it should 
be begun early, and continued, pretty constantly, by the same person, 
until the scholar, who is seldom inattentive, has completely acquired 
his lesson. The best singing birds, however, in 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 proportioned, and even handsome. The ease, elegance, and 
rapidity of his movements, the animation of his eye, and the intelli- 
gence he displays in listening and laying up lessons from almost every 
species of the feathered creation within his hearing, are really surpri- 
sing, and mark the peculiarity of his genius. To these qualities we 
may add that of a voice full, strong, and musical, and capable of al- 
most 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 preéminent over every com- 
petitor. The ear can listen to his music alone, to which that of all 
the others seems a mere accompaniment. Neither is this strain alto- 
gether imitative. His own native notes, which are easily distinguish- 
able 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 undi- 
minished 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, arresting 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 sup- 
pose 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 admirable mimic, and are decoyed, by the fancied 
* Travels, p. 52. Tntrod 
