﻿MELODY OF VOICE. 



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ception to this law, we at present know, is the instance 

 just cited. Yet, although the Insessorial birds are thus 

 distinguished, the faculty is restricted to certain families, 

 while it is totally denied to others. The Dentirostral 

 tribe is more especially distinguished in this respect, for 

 in that group we have the whole of the thrushes, mock- 

 birds, warblers, nightingales, robins, &c. The Coni- 

 rostral tribe, in the typical examples, does not contain 

 many songsters : but in such groups as blend into the 

 adjoining tribe, we have the whole family of finches, 

 which includes the bullfinches, linnets^ goldfinches, 

 canaries, and all the thick-billed songsters, whose strong 

 and varied notes are commonly heard in the woods of 

 Europe. It appears difficult among so many songsters, 

 each varying in its style and intonation, to decide which 

 family is entitled to the most pre-eminent station. The 

 chirping school, however, must give place to the war- 

 bling style of the thrushes and the nightingales, whose 

 full and rich melodies are certainly superior to the notes 

 of the canary. But when to the perfection of the 

 thrush is superadded the power of imitating the notes 

 of all others, the mockbird (Orpheus polyglottus) must 

 be enthroned as the queen of the feathered songsters. 

 The astonishing vocal powers possessed by this cele- 

 brated bird have been dwelt upon by one whose de- 

 scription unites the truth of prose with the feelings and 

 beauty of poetry. The English reader may be inclined 

 to think the picture of the American mockbird drawn 

 by MSj ilson, is somewhat too highly coloured ; but even 

 admitting this, for the sake of argument, still the simple 

 fact would remain, that this species can naturally imitate, 

 "to the life," the song of every other bird, almost of every 

 animal, which it once hears, while at the same time it pos- 

 sesses a rich and peculiar song of its own. We cannot 

 say thus much of any European bird, and their powers 

 are consequently inferior. Birds possessing this natural 

 habit of imitation are not, however, confined to the genus 

 Orpheus. Some of the shrikes employ this faculty for 

 the purpose, we may conjecture, of alluring small birds 



