use called as loudly and constantly all day as though no
mocking-bird shouted his peculiar and easily imitated call from the
house-top; the cardinal grosbeak sang every day in the grove, though the
mocker copied him more closely than any other bird. He repeats the
notes, rattles out the call, but he cannot put the cardinal's soul into
them. The song of every bird seems to me the expression of himself; it
is a perfect whole of its kind, given with proper inflections and
pauses, and never hurried; whereas, when the mocker delivers it, it is
simply one more note added to his repertory, uttered in his rapid
staccato, in his loud, clear voice, interpolated between incongruous
sounds, without expression, and lacking in every way the beauty and
attraction of the original.

The song consists entirely of short staccato phrases, each phrase
repeated several times, perhaps twice, possibly five or six times. If he
has a list of twenty or thirty,--and I think he has more,--he can make
almost unlimited changes and variety, and can sing for two hours or
longer, holding his listener spellbound and almost without consciousness
that he has repeated anything.

So winning and so lasting is the charm with which this bird enthralls
his lovers that scarcely had I left his enchanted neighborhood before
everything else was forgotten, and there remain of that idyllic month
only beautiful pictures and delightful memories.

"O thou heavenly bird!"

A TRICKSY SPIRIT.

Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite
Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave
And trickling down the bank, discourses brave
Of serious matter that no man may guess,
Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress;
All these but now within the house are heard:
O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird?

SIDNEY LANIER.

IV.

A TRICKSY SPIRIT.

For bird-lovers who know the mocking-bird only as a captive in our
houses he has few attractions: a mere loud-voiced echo of the
inharmonious sounds man gathers about his home,--car-bells, street
cries, and other unpleasing noises,--and choosing for his performances
the hours one wants to sleep. Unfortunate is the neighborhood in which
one is kept. Such was my feeling about the bird before I knew him in
freedom, where he has a song of his own. But in my search for native
birds I often saw the mocker, was surprised to notice his intelligence
of look and manner, and at last too