HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



225 



great plenty of birds adorned with fuch beautiful plum- 

 age, that they are nor equalled by arfy in Europe. 



It is true, fay many European authors, that Ameri- 

 can birds are fuperior in beauty of plumage, but not in 

 excellence of fong, in which they are exceeded by thofe 

 of Europe. So think two modern Italians (s): but 

 however learned they are in certain fpeculative fubjecls, 

 they are equally ignorant of the productions of Ameri- 

 ca : it will be fufficient^ in order to confute thofe au- 

 thors, to fubjoin the teftimony of Hernandez to this 

 point (/) ; who, after having heard the finging of the 

 beft nightingales at the court of Philip II. heard for 

 many years the centzontli or polyglots, the cardinals ti- 

 grets, the cuitlaccochis and other innumerable fpecies of 

 vulgar linging birds in Mexico unknown in Europe, be- 

 fides the nightingales, calderines calandras, and others 

 common to both continents. Among the linging birds 

 moft efteemed in Europe the nightingale is the mod ce- 

 lebrated, but it lings dill better in America, according 

 to the affirmation of Mr. Bomare. The nightingale of 

 Louifiana is, he fays, the fame with that of Europe ; 

 but it is more tame and familiar, and fmgs the whole 



Vol. III. G g year, 



(j) The author of a certain Differtation metaphyseal and political, Sulla 

 Proportzione de Talenti e del loro Ufo, in which he has written moft prepofterous 

 particulars refpe<5ting America, and lhewn himfelf as ignorant as a child, of the 

 land, the climate, the animals, and the inhabitants of that new world. The 

 other is the author of fome beautiful Italian fables, in one of which an Ame- 

 rican bird holds a difcourfe with a nightingale. 



{t) In caveis quibus detinetur, fuaviflime cantat ; nec eft avis ulla, animalvc 

 cujus vocemnon reddat luculentiffime et exquifitiffime semuletur. Quid ? PM- 

 lomelam noftram longo fuperat intervallo, cujus fuaviffimum concentum tanto- 

 pere laudant celebrantque, vetufti auclores, et quidquid avicularum apud nos- 

 trum orbem cantu auditur fuaviffimum. Hernandez de Avibus N. Hifp. cap. 

 30 de centzontlatole five cenzontli. 



Linnseus calls the centzontli crpheus. Other authors call it mocquer, the 

 mocking-bird, or Beftardo. 



