MOCKING BIRD. 
169 
emphasis and rapidity ; and continued, with undiminished 
ardour, for half an hout, or an hour, at a time. His expanded 
wings and tail, glistening with white, and the buoyant gaiety 
of his action, arresting 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 admirable mimic, and are decoyed by the fancied 
calls of their mates ; or dive, with precipitation, into the depth 
of thickets, at the scream of what they suppose to be the 
Sparrow Hawk. 
The Mocking Bird loses little of the power and energy of 
his song by confinement. In his domesticated state, when he 
commences his career of song, it is impossible to stand by 
uninterested. He whistles for the dog, — Csesar starts up, wags 
his tail, and runs to meet his master. He squeaks out like a 
hurt chicken, — and the hen hurries about with hanging wings, 
and bristled feathers, clucking to protect its injured brood. The 
barking of the dog, the mewing of the cat, the creaking of a 
passing wheelbarrow, follow, with great truth and rapidity. He 
repeats the tune taught him by his master, though of consider- 
able length, fully and faithfully. He runs over the quiverings 
of the Canary, and the clear whistlings of the Virginia Night- 
ingale, or Red Bird, with such superior execution and effect, 
that the mortified songsters feel their own inferiority, and 
* Travels, p. 32. Introd. 
