118 
SECOND 
JOURNEY. 
I 
WANDERINGS IN 
returns to man, and pays the little tribute which he 
owes him for his protection ; he takes his station on 
a tree close to his house; and there, for hours 
together, pours forth a succession of imitative notes. 
His own song is sweet, but very short. If a toucan 
be yelping in the neighbourhood, he drops it, and 
imitates him. Then he will amuse his protector 
with the cries of the different species of the wood¬ 
pecker ; and when the sheep bleat, he will distinctly 
answer them. Then comes his own song again; 
and if a puppy dog, or a Guinea fowl interrupt him, 
he takes them off* admirably, and by his different 
gestures during the time, you would conclude that 
he enjoys the sport. 
The cassique is gregarious, and imitates any sound 
he hears with such exactness, that he goes by no 
other name than that of Mocking-bird amongst the 
colonists. 
At breeding time, a number of these pretty chor¬ 
isters resort to a tree near the planter’s house, and 
from its outside branches weave their pendulous 
nests. So conscious do they seem that they never 
give offence, and so little suspicious are they of 
receiving any injury from man, that they will choose 
a tree within forty yards from his house, and occupy 
the branches so low down, that he may peep into 
the nests. A tree in Waratilla creek affords a proof 
of this. 
The proportions of the cassique are so fine, that 
he may be said to be a model of symmetry in orni¬ 
thology. On each wing he has a bright yellow spot, 
