Mar., 1906 | 
5i 
The Habits of a Mockingbird 
BY W. OTTO EMERSON 
T HAT wild birds respond readily to human kindness is often heard of, but not 
so well known to many thru personal experience. A mockingbird (Mimus 
polyglottos leucopterus) came about my home place here at Haywards in Nov- 
ember, 1904, and took up his quarters for the winter in the top of a Monterey 
cypress summer-house. This was nothing new, for mockingbirds had visited the 
place for several years past. But this one began early to show unusual freedom 
about the south porch, where a young grape vine grew at the corner post and bore 
several fine clusters of fruit. Mimus must have thought these were grown for his 
special benefit, for he soon found them out and by his tameness let us know 
his approval. 
There was piled some fifteen feet away a lot of prune-tree brush where 
Mocky usually took up his stand after a fill of grapes, and here on the highest 
MOCKINGBIRD 
branch he would sing, as if to pa) r for the treat. Should he detach a whole grape, 
off he would sail to the brush pile, showing those flickering white wing-patches 
and tail spread fan-like. Down he would dive beneath the brush where he would 
remain while eating the grape, and then come hopping out from limb to limb to 
an upper branch, wipe his bill, preen a feather or two, and sing a thanksgiving in 
tender sweet notes. 
This continued until the grapes were almost gone. Meantime he had become 
so tame that I could set up my camera on top of a small table within three feet of 
his grapes and snap the shutter, without his showing alarm by even a twitch of 
the wing or tail. Neither was he alarmed by the appearance of the black cat, Nig, 
about the porch at any hour of the day. He only cocked his little head to one 
side as tho to say, “He won’t jump for me; he has been taught better.” In fact 
Nig did not take any notice of him, taking it for granted that Mocky had a cer- 
tain right to hop about the railing unmolested, to which place the bird often flew 
before going up into the vine to feed. 
ft was not long before the question arose as to what we could do to keep him 
