MOCKING-BIRD. 
19 
scholar, who is seldom inattentive, has completely acquired his lesson. 
The best singing birds, however, in my own opinion, are those that have 
been reared in the country, and educated under the tuition of the 
feathered choristers of the surrounding fields, groves, woods, and 
meadows. 
The plumage of the Mocking-bird, though none of the homeliest, has 
nothing gaudy or brilliant in it, and, had he nothing else to recommend 
him, would scarcely entitle him to notice, but his figure is well propor- 
tioned, and even handsome. The ease, elegance and rapidity of his 
movements, the animation of his eye, and the intelligence he displays 
in listening and laying up lessons from almost every species of the fea- 
thered creation within his hearing, are really surprising, and mark the 
peculiarity of his genius. To these qualities we may add that of a voice 
full, strong, and musical, and capable of almost every modulation, from 
the clear mellow tones of the Wood Thrush, to the savage scream of the 
Bald Eagle. In measure and accent he faithfully follows his originals. 
In force and sweetness of expression he greatly improves upon them. 
In his native groves, mounted on the top of a tall bush or half-grown 
tree, in the dawn of deAvy morning, while the woods are already vocal 
with a multitude of warblers, his admirable song rises pre-eminent over 
every competitor. The ear can listen to his music alone, to which that 
of all the others seems a mere accompaniment. Neither is this strain 
altogether imitative. His own native notes, which are' easily distin- 
guishable by such as are well acquainted with those of our various song 
birds, are bold and full, and varied seemingly beyond all limits. They 
consist of short expressions of two, three, or at the most five or six 
syllables ; generally interspersed with imitations, and all of them uttered 
with great emphasis and rapidity ; and continued, with undiminished 
ardor, for half an hour, or an hour at a time. His expanded wings and 
tail, glistening with white, and the buoyant gayety of his action, arrest- 
ing the eye, as his song most irresistibly does the ear. He sweeps round 
with enthusiastic ecstasy — he mounts and descends as his song swells 
or dies away ; and, as my friend Mr. Bartram has beautifully expressed 
it, "He bounds aloft with the celerity of an arrow, as if to recover or 
recall his very soul, expired in the last elevated strain."* While thus 
exerting himself, a bystander destitute of sight, would suppose that the 
whole feathered tribes had assembled together, on a trial of skill ; each 
striving to produce his utmost effect ; so perfect are his imitations. He 
many times deceives the sportsman, and sends him in search of birds 
that perhaps are not within miles of him ; but whose notes he exactly 
imitates : even birds themselves are frequently imposed on by this ad- 
mirable mimic, and are decoyed by the fancied calls of their mates ; or 
* Travels, p. 32. Introd. 
