OUR FOREST CHORISTERS. 197 



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 imita- 

 tions, and all of them uttered with great emphasis and ra- 

 pidity ; and continued, with undiminished 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." 



6. While thus exerting himself, a bystander destitute 

 of sight would suppose that the whole feathered tribe had 

 assembled together, on a trial of skill, each striving to pro- 

 duce 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 calls of their mates ; or dive, 

 with precipitation, into the depths of thickets, at the 

 scream of what they suppose to be the sparrow-hawk. 



7. The mocking-bird loses little of the power and en- 

 ergy of his song by confinement. In his domesticated 

 state, when he commences his career of song, it is impossi- 

 ble to stand by uninterested. He whistles for the dog ; 

 Caesar starts up, wags his tail, and runs to meet his master. 

 He squeaks out like a hurt chicken, and the hen hurries 

 about, with hanging wings and bristled feather?, cluck- 

 ing to protect its injured brood. The barking of the dog, 

 the mewing of the cat, the creaking of a passing wheel- 



