Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1894 — Mocking-Bird Music. [ARTICLE]

Mocking-Bird Music.

Mr. Theodore Roosevelt expresses the opinion that the musical reputation of the mocking-bird suffers greatly from Its habit of mimicry. On ordinary occasions, and especially in the daytime, it plays the harlequin, but at night during the love season it has “a song, or rather songs, which are not only purely original, but also moj-e beautiful than any other bird music whatsoever.” Once, near Nashville, he heard a mocking-bird sing in a way that he can never forget, He thus describes his experience: The moon was full. My host kindly Resigned me a room the windows of which opened on a great magnoliatrek, where, I was t >ld, a mockingbird sang every night, and all night long. I went to my room about ten o’clock. The moonlight was shining In through the open window, and the moCking-bird was already in the magnolia. The great elm was bathed in a flood of silver; I could see each twig, and mark every action of the singer, who was pouring forth such a rapture of bringing melody as I have never listened to before or since. Sometimes he would perch motionless for many minutes, his body quivering and thrilling with the outpour of music. Then he would drop softly from twig to twig until the lowest liubb was reached, when he would riap, fluttering and leaping through the branches, his song never ceasing fotA|j instant, until he reached the sdnkmlt of the tree and launched into

the warm, scent-laden air, floating in spirals, with outspread wings, until, as if spent, be sank gently back into tbe tree and down through the branches, while bls song rose into an ecstasy of ardor and passion. His voice rang like a clarionet In rich, full tones and his execution covered tbe widest possible compass; theme followed theme, a torrent of music, a swelling tide of harmony, in which scarcely any two bars were alike. I stayed until midnight listening to him; he was singing when I went to sleep; he was still singing when I woke up two hours later; he sang through the livelong night