Alligators’ Tenacity of Life, 
69 
243. I had never yet experienced such excitement and noise amongst 
birds. The whole of the residents of this huge tree were just then busily 
engaged in improving their long purse-like nests and building new ones. 
Its peculiarity of successfully imitating the cries and notes of all the 
four-footed and winged creatures round about has earned for it the name 
of “Mocking Bird.” There can hardly be a more turbulent or noisy 
songster than this mimic. Tf the rest of the animal world is silent, it 
sings its own particular song which has something quite pleasant about 
it. The Toucan perhaps will let its hollow voice suddenly ring forth, 
and the Oassicus turns into a Toucan : should the various woodpeckers 
start their hammering, the Mocking Bird is a woodpecker: let the 
sheep bleat, and the bird is never at a loss for an answer, but if 
no other sound falls for a few seconds, it harps back again onto its own 
peculiar note, unlil 'this is interrupted perhaps bv a gobble- gobble, or 
onpck-ouack in the farm buildings, when if immediately turns into a 
turkey or a duck. This mimicry is accompanied simultaneously with 
such extraordinary movements and contortions of the head, neck, and 
whole bodv timt T have offen had to burst into loud laughter at the gar- 
rulous and assuming bird. Oassicus haemorrhus Baud, is very gener- 
ally associated with C 1. versions upon the one tree, where their nests han«- 
rio«p too-other in fraternal concord, but is completely deficient in the gift 
of imitation. After the breeding season both species separate, and each 
flies in its own flock. The Icterus .ranthornus Baud., or Plantain Bird, 
just as plentiful, also hangs its baglike grass-blade nest on bush and 
tree: its abrupt.lv ending note has something unusually soft and sad 
about if, while thn't of Icterus icier oceplwlus Baud, is onlv a twitter. 
The sweetest songster however was unquestionably a wren ( Tn/othorus) 
which also seeks the neighbourhood of man as keenly as the latter loves 
and cherishes it: an empty bottle, which is quickly usurped by the pretty 
singer for its quarters, is purposely hung here and there under the roofs 
of the galleries and porticoes Tfs melodious note greets the earliest 
rays of 'the morning sun and accompanies it until it dips on the far 
horizon into the vasty deep. The IPfle creature at the same time be- 
comes so tame that it will come in through the open window of the study, 
and perching on the sill, warble its lovely little tune in front of the oc- 
cupants. Here as elsewhere it is strange that Nature for some reason 
unknown to us should deny a beautiful voice to the birds it graces with 
a brilliant plumage, but grant it to those from whom it has withheld 
one. 
244. Mrs. Arrindell having given me to understand that, for some 
Hum past, a, pair of alligators were lurking in the draining trench im- 
mediately behind her fowl-coop, to the serious detriment of its occupants, 
not onlv mv curiosity to watch these voracious gentry at close quarters 
but also my fondness for hunting would allow of no rest until I should 
lay the mischievous brutes in triumph at her feet. Cunning and cautious 
as they were I finally succeeded in outwitting both the thieves: they were 
Alligator punctulatus Spix. Neither of them was more than four feet 
but dowered with such a tenacity of life that it was long before we man- 
aged to kill them, although I had shot them both in the eye, and partic- 
