Mbere tbe /iDocftingsbtrD Sfngs 



the migrants outdo them at every point. 

 Indeed, you have never found the true 

 mocking-bird strain till you have heard 

 the dropping-song of a genuine wanderer 

 on his way to the nesting-place, or after 

 he has reached it. As a matter of fact, I 

 can say that I believe I have never yet 

 heard a resident mocking-bird sing the 

 dropping-song. 



If we could know that before men built 

 homes in our woods the non-migrants 

 lingered around in favored spots, as they 

 do around the farms and orchards now, 

 we might conclude that there is something 

 in a change of scene, climate, and diet to 

 affect bird-life, without attributing the de- 

 generacy of which I have spoken to the 

 influence of the unnatural food and the 

 comparative idleness afforded by a depen- 

 dence upon man. It cannot be definitely 

 shown, however, that the non-migrant 

 mocking-birds were such before man 

 tempted them and they did eat; for 

 ere the Frenchman came to our Gulf- 

 coast the Indian was there with his 

 house and his plot of cultivated ground. 

 72 



