164 
MOCKING BIRD. 
MOCKING BIRD.— TURDUS POLYGLOTTUS. 
Plate X. Fig. 1. 
Mimic Thrush, Lath. Syn. iii. p. 40, No. 42 Arct. Zool. ii. No. 194 Turdus 
Polyglottus, Lin. Syst. i. p. 293, No. 10. — Le grand moqueur, Briss. Orn. ii. 
p. 266, 29 Buff. Ois. iii. p. 325, PI. enl. 558, fig. 1 Singing Bird, Mocking 
Bird, or Nightingale, Bari Syn. p. 64, No. 5, p. 185, 31 Sloan. Jam. ii. 806, 
No. 34 The Mock Bird, Catesb. Car. i. pi. 27 Peak's Museum , No. 5288. 
ORPHEUS POLYGLOTTUS — Swainson. 
Turdus polyglottos, Bonap. Synop. p. 74. — The Mock ing Bird, Aud. pi. xxi. Orn. 
Biog. 108. 
This celebrated and very extraordinary bird, in extent and 
variety of vocal powers, stands unrivalled by the whole 
feathered songsters of this, or perhaps any other country ; and 
shall receive from us, in this place, all that attention and 
respect which superior merit is justly entitled to. 
Among the many novelties which the discovery of this part 
of the western continent first brought into notice, we may 
reckon that of the Mocking Bird ; which is not only peculiar 
to the New World, but inhabits a very considerable extent of 
both North and South America ; having been traced from the 
States of New England to Brazil ; and also among many of 
the adjacent islands. They are, however, much more nume- 
rous in those states south, than in those north, of the river 
Delaware ; being generally migratory in the latter, and 
resident (at least many of them) in the former. A warm 
climate, and low country, not far from the sea, seems most 
congenial to their nature ; accordingly, we find the species 
less numerous to the west than east of the great range of the 
Alleghany, in the same parallels of latitude. In the severe 
winter of 1808-9, I found these birds, occasionally, from Fre- 
dericksburg, in Virginia, to the southern parts of Georgia; 
becoming still more numerous the farther I advanced to the; 
