s." The State
Library of North Carolina possesses a set of Audubon's invaluable
works, of which there are only eight sets in America.

THE MOCKING-BIRD.

It is where the great magnolia shoots up its majestic trunk, crowned
with evergreen leaves, and decorated with a thousand beautiful
flowers, that perfume the air around; where the forests and the fields
are adorned with blossoms of every hue; where the golden orange
ornaments the gardens and groves; where bignonias of various kinds
interlace their climbing stems around the white-flowered Stuartia,
and, mounting still higher, cover the summits of the lofty trees
around, accompanied with innumerable vines, that here and there
festoon the dense foliage of the magnificent woods, lending to the
vernal breeze a slight portion of the perfume of their clustered
flowers; where a genial warmth seldom forsakes the atmosphere; where
berries and fruits of all descriptions are met with at every step; in
a word, kind reader, it is where Nature seems to have paused, as she
passed over the earth, and, opening her stores, to have strewed with
unsparing hand the diversified seeds from which have sprung all the
beautiful and splendid forms which I should in vain attempt to
describe, that the mocking-bird should have fixed his abode, there
only that its wondrous song should be heard.

But where is that favored land? It is in that great continent to whose
distant shores Europe has sent forth her adventurous sons, to wrest
for themselves a habitation from the wild inhabitants of the forest,
and to convert the neglected soil into fields of exuberant fertility.
It is, reader, in Louisiana that these bounties of nature are in the
greatest perfection. It is there that you should listen to the
love-song of the mocking-bird, as I at this moment do. See how he
flies round his mate, with motions as light as those of the butterfly!
His tail is widely expanded, he mounts in the air to a small distance,
describes a circle, and, again alighting, approaches his beloved one,
his eyes gleaming with delight, for she has already promised to be his
and his only. His beautiful wings are gently raised, he bows to his
love, and, again bouncing upwards, opens his bill and pours forth his
melody, full of exultation at the conquest which he has made.

They are not the soft sounds of the flute or of the hautboy that I
hear, but the sweeter notes of Nature's own music. The mellowness of
the song, the varied mo