Mbere tbe /lDocfting*bir& Sings 



no one seems really to have noticed before 

 I mentioned it a few years ago. 



What for convenience I have called the 

 Creole coast begins at Pensacola, Florida, 

 and ends at the mouth of the Sabine River, 

 between Louisiana and Texas. A lei- 

 surely tour in spring from one of these 

 points to the other leads through the para- 

 dise of the mocking-birds, so far as the 

 resident ones are concerned ; but the area 

 over which the bird is more or less evenly 

 distributed, both as resident and migrant, 

 represents almost a third of our national 

 domain. The lovely hill country around 

 Tallahassee, the regions of Savannah and 

 Charleston, and many favored spots on the 

 peninsula of Florida, are swarming with 

 them. The farther north we go the fewer 

 of them we see until we cross the line of 

 40° north latitude, where they practically 

 disappear, though straggling adventurers 

 have been reported on the Canadian line 

 and in certain parts of New England. The 

 width of their habitat is from the Atlan- 

 tic to the Pacific, on a Hne with our Gulf- 

 coast. 



82 



