The Western Mockingbird 
Taken at Los Colibris 
for I myself never heard the Lincoln 
Sparrow sing, save in his breeding 
haunts high in the mountains, where, 
of course, the Mocker does not 
penetrate. 
A captive Mockingbird which 
I once observed in the East pro¬ 
claimed unconsciously the history of 
his early life. He reproduced not 
merely the songs of the village, where 
he had been kept some months, but 
those of the wilderness, as well, where 
he must have been reared. Besides 
these, the various songs and noises 
to be heard in the average bird store 
were faithfully represented. Some 
of his mimicry was irresistibly fetch¬ 
ing, and I stood rooted to the pave¬ 
ment as the bird sang from a 
suspended cage at some distance 
from the street. What puzzled me 
most, however, about his perfor¬ 
mance, was that he always stood si¬ 
lent when a bantam rooster some two 
blocks away crowed. When his mis¬ 
tress assured me that it was the 
Mockingbird who crowed, I could 
scarcely believe my ears. Having 
always heard the rooster at a dis¬ 
tance, the Mocker reproduced the 
sound in exactly the same way, with 
the ventriloquistic effect manifestly 
resulting. The crowing of the 
bantam was a favorite trick of his, 
and I noticed that he usually 
followed it by the scream of a hawk. 
The challenge of the cock followed by the cry of his enemy was certainly 
as clever a piece of stage work as ever a glee club did in a melange. In 
the course of an hour, songs and cries of seventeen species of birds were 
recognized, besides numerous baby calls not so clear. Among his many 
bird-store reminiscences, I made sure at one time that the monkeys were 
quarreling in their cage. His torrent of borrowed songs was continually 
INQUISITIVE 
Photo by the Author 
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