SINGING-BIRDS. 
171 
He is the Nightingale of the Western World, 
the many-voiced Mocking-bird (Mimus polyglot^ 
tus). Abundant in almost all situations, from 
mountain-peak to sea-shore, but especially common 
in the orchards and about the homesteads of the 
lowlands, the voice of the Mocking-bird is heard all 
through the year, even when other birds are silent ; 
and all through the day ; and that not by ones, or 
twos, but by dozens and scores, each straining his 
melodious throat to outsing his rivals, and pouring 
forth his full, expressive strains in all the rich variety 
for which this inimitable songster is so famous. 
Wilson has truly observed of this delightful bird, 
that ‘‘ the ear can listen to his music alone, to which 
that of all the others seems a mere accom_paniment.” 
If all the birds of Jamaica were voiceless, except the 
Mocking-bird, the woods, and groves, and gardens 
would still be everywhere vocal with his profuse and 
rapturous songs. 
In those brilliant nights, when the full-orbed moon 
shines from the depth of the clear sky with such in- 
tensity that the eye cannot gaze upon the dazzling 
brightness of her face, shedding down on plain and 
sea a flood of soft light sufficient to enable one to 
read an ordinary book with ease in the open air, — 
how sweet, how rich, how thrilling, are the bursts of 
melody that rise from the trees around, the serenades 
of wakeful Mocking-birds. Nothing to be compared 
to it have I ever heard in England ; the night-song 
of a single bird, however fine may be its execution, 
is no more to be put in competition with such a 
chorus, than the performance of a single musician. 
