Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-06-22
me Mockinr Birds.


The Houston, Texas, Post publishes a
conversation in which the peculiarities
of mOcking birds are discovered, from
which we copy the following extracts
81 have heard it stated that the old birds
viii kill the young ones after they have
been taken from the nest and Gagged. Is
that true?''
'sYes. There is no doubt about it. /
have seen il done time and again. If the
old. birds find where their young have been
taken they will come right in the house
and bring them food as regularly as they
did when they were in the nest. They
will do this for five or six days, but at the
end of that time they seem to despair of
liberating their brood and deliberately kill
them"
How do they kill them?"
''rhey give them poison. / have never
known them to fail yet, and they never
postpone the killing longer than eight
days. don't know what they use, but
it does its work well and kills every
time"
'sAre they easily taughtYp
Eyes. very; but they soon drop what
they learn and pick up something else.
1t is not often they learn entire tunes,
though have known of one or two very
accomplished birds that could sing an en-
tire tune very correctly. A young gentle
man of this city had remarkable fine sing
er that could whistle the entire tune Dixie
from the first to the last note correctly.
He took the bird to Canada with him one
summer, and il was so much adj
mired that ne was constantly be-
sieged by persons to purchase it. One
gentleman offered him $500 in gold for the
bird, but he refused it and returned home
with his pet; which is dead now, be-
lieve."
'.Has the hooking bird any song of its
own?"
ssNo: 1 had never thought of the fact
until one day | was over in the court
house when a case was being argued. A
young lawyer, who had just moved here,
made a very flOwery speech, which was
replete with classical illusions and quota
tions. When he sat down, old Steve
TOmpkins. one of the most brilliant ora
tors at the bar, rose to answer him and
said: May it please your Honor, our
young friend there reminds me of a mock
ing bird, which steals the song of every
bird in the forest and has no note of his
Own.' / thought over the matter and dis
cerned that it was true. The hooking
birds are simple imitatOrs and have no
originality"
'.Are they affectiOnate?"
Eyes, and sometimes they give the
strongest proofs of their likes and dis
likes. Some years ago there was young
physician here who was loved by all on
account of his gentle, loving disposition.
Among his more humble but not less de-
voted admirers was a knocking bird that
had been born and reared in his garden.
This bird took the greatest fancy to him,
and when he returned home in the even
ing would hop round his front steps and
then fly to tree near by and sing for
hours at a time. The bird appeared to
be in an ecstasy of delight whenever the
doctor was at home. Finally the yellow
fever broke out here, and, among
others, the doctor was stricken down. He
fingered for four days and then died. On
the night before his death the watchers by
his bedside had their attention attracted by
the mournful sObbiDg notes that the doc.
tors bird as they call it, uttered through
out the night. The next day the doctor
died and that night the bird was silent.
After the funeral the family opened the
room to air it, and when the bed was
drawn aside the first thing seen was the
hooking bird lying at the head of the
bed. dead. How it got there no one knew,
but there it was, dead, as though it could
not survive one 1t loved so WELL"