Mbere tbe /iDocfting^bfrb Sings 



English sparrow — a murrain seize him! 

 What is left he takes. 



Ever since American birds began to be 

 studied the mocking-bird has been a favor- 

 ite of the descriptive ornithologists. A 

 vast amount of fine writing has been the 

 result, mostly sonorous prose, for, happily, 

 the bird's despicable name has kept him 

 in a large degree exempt from the em- 

 balming process known only to the poets. 

 John Lawson fairly began the work; but 

 it was Mark Catesby who, in his " Natural 

 History of Carolina," etc., first opened wide 

 the gate into the region of American bird- 

 song. Alexander Wilson soon followed 

 with his superb achievements; then came 

 Charles Lucien Bonaparte, Thomas Nuttall, 

 and William Swainson. But the crowning 

 work was done by a man of the Creole 

 coast: Audubon gave the mocking-bird 

 a brilliant biography. Before this, how- 

 ever, the great Buffon had romanced at a 

 distance, and by sheer force of style — 

 which in his celebrated address he said 

 "is the man hims&lf" — had come very 

 near describing the dropping-song, which 

 6 8i 



