The Mocking Bird is regarded as the chief of songsters, for in
addition to his remarkable powers of imitation, he is without a rival
in variety of notes. The Brown Thrasher is thought by many to have a
sweeter song, and one equally vigorous, but there is a bold brilliancy
in the performance of the Mocker that is peculiarly his own, and which
has made him _par excellence_ the forest extemporizer of vocal melody.
About this of course there will always be a difference of opinion, as
in the case of the human melodists.
So well known are the habits and characteristics of the Mocking Bird
that nearly all that could be written about him would be but a
repetition of what has been previously said. In Illinois, as in many
other states, its distribution is very irregular, its absence from
some localities which seem in every way suited being very difficult to
account for. Thus, according to "Birds of Illinois," while one or two
pairs breed in the outskirts of Mount Carmel nearly every season, it
is nowhere in that vicinity a common bird. A few miles further north,
however, it has been found almost abundant. On one occasion, during a
three mile drive from town, six males were seen and heard singing
along the roadside. Mr. H. K. Coale says that he saw a mocking bird in
Stark county, Indiana, sixty miles southeast of Chicago, January 1,
1884; that Mr. Green Smith had met with it at Kensington Station,
Illinois, and that several have been observed in the parks and
door-yards of Chicago. In the extreme southern portion of the state
the species is abundant, and is resident through the year.
The Mocking Bird does not properly belong among the birds of the
middle or eastern states, but as there are many records of its
nesting in these latitudes it is thought to be safe to include it.
Mrs. Osgood Wright states that individuals have often been seen in the
city parks of the east, one having lived in Central Park, New York
city, late into the winter, throughout a cold and extreme season. They
have reared their young as far north as Arlington, near Boston, where
they are noted, however, as rare summer residents. Dr. J. A. Allen,
editor of _The Auk_, notes that they occasionally nest in the
Connecticut Valley.
The Mocking Bird has a habit of singing and fluttering in the middle
of the night, and in different individuals the song varies, as is
noted of many birds, particularly canaries. The song is a natural love
song, a rich dreamy melody. The mocking song is imitative of the notes
of all the birds of field, forest, and garden, broken into fragments.
The Mocker's nest is loosely made of leaves and grass, rags, feathers,
etc., plain and comfortable. It is never far from the ground. The eggs
are four to six, bluish green, spattered with shades of brown.
Wilson's description of the Mocking Bird's song will probably never be
surpassed: "With expanded wings and tail glistening with white, and
the bouyant gayety of his action arresting the eye, as his song does
most irresistably the ear, he sweeps around with enthusiastic ecstasy,
and mounts and descends as his song swells or dies away. And he often
deceives the sportsman, and sends him in search of birds that are not
perhaps within miles of him, but whose notes he exactly imitates."
Very useful is he, eating large spiders and grasshoppers, and the
destructive cottonworm.