The Western Mockingbird 
changing, like a kaleidoscope. I timed him once, and the tune was 
changed eighty-seven times in seven minutes. 
A western performer phrases the borrowed song three or four 
or five times, rather than twice only, as does the Thrasher; though I 
think I have detected a tendency to phrase his own original offerings 
twice, in general thrasher-fashion. But perhaps this itself is an imitative 
form taken bodily from the California Thrasher, whose notes cannot 
be differentiated at all times from the 
Mocker’s own. 
A list of bird-songs imitated by 
the W estern Mockingbird would 
be simply a repetition of the 
California Check-list. 
Two examples, how¬ 
ever, occur to me as 
worthy of special 
note. On the 19th of 
March, 1917, I heard 
two Mockingbirds 
imitating each other. 
Bird Number One 
would sound a phrase, 
doubled, and pause, 
while Bird Number 
Two, some sixty yards 
away, repeated it very 
faithfully. This an- 
tiphonal arrangement 
lasted through a dozen 
bars or more; and then 
Bird Number Two held 
the theme, while 
Number One echoed him 
through half a dozen 
measures. But the 
performance of Number 
One turned mimic was 
half-hearted and listless. 
Perhaps he began 
to realize, for the first 
time, what an un¬ 
gracious thing it might 
Taken in Los Angeles County Photo by Pierce 
NEST AND EGGS OF WESTERN MOCKINGBIRD IN ORANGE TREE 
721 
