Sept. 1887.] 



AND OC 



My Mockingbirds. 



BY WALTER IIOXIE. 



My young Mockingbirds arc learning to fly ; 

 one has just plumped down before the door and 

 his anxious mother is trying to incite him to a 

 feeble flight, for she has seen cats about such 

 places and thinks it a very unsatisfactory spot 

 for her infant. His little brothers are balanc- 

 ing themselves in the top of the hedge and 

 chirping their approval of his brave venture. 

 Now he essays to reach the top of the fence 

 but ills little tail is not long enough yet for a 

 servicable rudder and he misses his aim and 

 dumps himself among the potato vines on the 

 other side. His admirers, however, applaud 

 this new feat as loudly as the previous one. I 

 know that for the next day or two there will be 

 a good deal of fluttering about this corner of 

 my hedge. This is the second family this in- 

 dustrious pair have sent forth upon the world 

 this year. The flrst left the paternal domicile 

 while 1 was away and I only knew they had 

 ■rived at years of discretion by missing them 

 when I came home. 



The present family were hatched hungry. 

 Young Mockingbirds as a rule possess large 

 appetites, but these were positively of unlimited 

 capacity. Tlie old people were kept skurrying 

 about from sunrise to sunset; and here let me 

 say that tlieir food was not confined to insects 

 by any means. Berries entered largely into 

 their bill of fare and as a foster parent, I my- 



self have often regaled them with bits of cold 

 hominy. It is a popular fallacy to speak of 

 birds as "strictly insectivorous" and the like. 

 Very few species will always confine them- 

 selves to one class of food. A still greater 

 error is to divide all birds into useful and de- 

 structive. This subject is too wide and impor- 

 tant to discuss here, but 1 Will illustrate one 

 point of it at least, as applied to my little 

 friends in the hedge. They are very partial to 

 flgs ; a neighbor of mine who has a fig tree 

 styles Mockingbirds " the most destructive of 

 all the feathered tribe." No sooner do his figs 

 begin to ripen than the Mockingbirds flock 

 there by the dozen. Then he loads up his old 

 gun and bangs away at them for hours, and 

 unfortunately he is a pretty good shot too. 

 Some years his murders must count up into 

 the hundreds. 



I think my pets will not wander so far. Just 

 now tliey seem to find plenty to eat about home 

 and are fattening on the woi'ras from my to- 

 mato vines. 



Mockingbird is not a good name for this 

 sweet songster. Its rendering of the notes of 

 other birds is a skilful handling of what Is 

 often not in first hands a pleasing melody. I 

 have in mind one who lives near the sea beach ; 

 the theme of his lay is always the cry of sea- 

 birds. The Curlew, the Oystercatcher and 

 even the Terns find a place in his song. I once 

 heard him in the moon light, when he treated 

 me to a delightful pot-pourri of the whistlin; 

 of Plovers and the voices of Peeps. Another 

 who has his nest in a peach tree that overhangs 

 a pig pen, blends with his song a most skilful 

 adaptation of the tones of the infant pork( 

 below him. Individuals vary considerably in 

 theii- favorite art, and age seems to increase 

 rather than diminish their powers. The pres- 

 ent incumbent in my hedge is a young bird and 

 his essays beyond his native carol have only 

 extended as yet to the whistle of the Cardinal 

 and the rollicking lay of the Nonpariel. The 

 latter bird is one that seems never to complete 

 his song. He always stops as if he was out of 

 breath and could'nt get to the end. Not so my 

 Mocker; he handles the notes of his little 

 gaudy neighbor so deftly that there seems to 

 be nothing lacking. There is a completeness 

 about his imitations which far exceeds the 

 original. Even the scolding and anxious cry 

 of the mother bird has a certain charm about 

 it when rightly studied. It resembles a thin 

 slice from the discordant squall of her cousin 

 the Catbird, but smoothed off and finished In a 

 way to suit ner own fastidious taste. 



O.&O. XII. Sept. 1887 p.146 -/V^ 



