MO C KIN G BIRD . — -Mimics polyglottus* 
The celebrated Mocking Bird of America belongs to the Thrush family. 
This wonderful bird is not only a most admirable songster, but is capable of 
imitating almost every possible sound that meets its ear. It mocks all the birds 
of the forest, and decoys them around it by imitating their different voices, and 
if it comes near human habitations, it gains a great addition to its former stock 
of sounds, and lays up in its memory the various noises that are produced by 
man and his surroundings ; introducing among its other imitations the barking of 
dogs, the harsh “ setting ” of saws, the whirring buzz of the millstone, the ever- 
lasting clack of the hoppers, the dull heavy blow of the mallet, and the cracking 
of splitting timbers, the fragments of songs whistled by the labourers, the 
creaking of ungreased wheels, the neighing of horses, the plaintive baa of the 
sheep, and the deep lowing of the oxen, together with all the innumerable and 
accidental sounds which are necessarily produced through human means. Unfor- 
tunately, the bird is rather apt to spoil his own wonderful song by a sudden 
introduction of one of these inharmonious sounds, so that the listener, whose ear 
is being delighted with a succession of the softest and richest-toned vocalists, will 
suddenly be electrified with the loud snriek of the angry hawk or the grating 
whirr of the grindstone. 
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