436 
WRENS, THRASHERS, ETC. 
(Texas) to the Pacific coast, and from Indian Territory south to Oaxaca, 
Mexico, and over Lower California; resident in the southern and lower 
portions of its range ; migratory in the northern and higher portions. 
Nest. — Bulky, made of sticks, often thorny ones, lined with finer ma¬ 
terials, sometimes gray moss or cotton ; placed in thick bushes, thorny 
trees, yuccas, hedgerows, and vines. Eggs: 4, pale bluish or greenish, 
spotted with reddish brown. 
Food. — Earthworms, insects, and berries. 
The mocker almost sings with his wings. He has a pretty trick 
of lifting them as his song waxes, a gesture that not only serves to 
show off the white wing patches, but gives a charming touch of 
vivacity, an airy, almost sublimated fervor to his love-song. His 
fine frenzies often carry him quite off his feet. From his cliimney- 
top perch he tosses himself up in the air and dances and pirouettes 
as he sings till he drops back, it would seem, from sheer lack of 
From Biological Survey, U. S. Dept, of Agriculture. 
Fig. 568. Eastern Mockingbird. 
breath. He sings all day, and often — if we would believe his 
audiences —he sings down the chimney all night, and when camp¬ 
ing in mockerland in the full of the moon you can almost credit 
the contention. A mocker in one tree pipes up and that wakes his 
brother mockers in other trees, and when they have all done their 
parts every other sleepy little songster in the neighborhood — be he 
sparrow or wren —rouses enough to give a line of his song. The 
wave of song is so delightful that even the weary traveler gladly 
lies awake to listen. 
But in broad daylight the mocker’s ebullitions are not always 
pleasing. In Texas the birds are so common and their mimicry so 
perfect, that it is positively tormenting to the ornithologist. They 
imitate everything from the 'squack of the blue jay, the varied notes 
of the Cassin kingbird, the shrike, and the gnatcatcher, to the shrill 
call of the rock squirrel. Whenever you hear a new bird and hurry 
through brush and briars to see it, at the end of your heated search 
there sits a calm mocker! As the birds are omnipresent and always 
singing somebody else’s song, they sadly interfere with the ornitho¬ 
logist’s serenity of spirit. 
