Roseburg review. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 1885-1920, 1885-01-24
THE MocKING-BiRD.
a Lover of Nature Visits the Sweet Singer
In the Florida Pines.

tsbG As
a Lover of Nature Visits the Sweet Singer
In the Florida Pines.
Near the mouth of the st. Marks
River, as lay under a small tree, a
mocking- came and lit on the top
of neighboring bush, and sang for me
its rarest and most wonderful combina-
ton, called by the negroes the drop
ping song" Whoever has closely OBJ
served the bird has noted its mounting
song" very frequent performance,
wherein the songster begins on the
lowest branch of tree and appears
literally to mount on its music, from
bough to bough, until the highest spray
of the top is reached, where it will sit
for many minutes finging upon the air
an ecstatic stream of almost infinitely
varied vocalization. But he who has
never heard the dropping song'' has
not discovered the last possibility of the
mocHng- birds voice. / have never
found any note of this extremely in
teresting habit of the bird by any
ornithologist, habit which is, I sus-
pect, occasional, and connected
with the most tender part, of
che mating season. It is, in measure,
che reverse of the mounting song,'" be-
ginning where the latter leaves OF. I
have heard it but four times, when was
sure of it, during all my rambles and
patient observations in the chosen
haunts of the bird; once in North Geor-
gia, twice in the immediate vicinity of
Tallahassee, Florida, and once near the
st. Marks River, as above mentioned.
I have at several other times heard the
song, as thought, but not being able to
see the bird, or clearly distinguish the
peculiar notes, cannot register these as
certainly correct. My attention was first
called to this interesting performance
by an aged negro man, who, being with
me on an egg-hunting expedition, cried
out one morning, as burst of strangely
rhapsodic music rang from a haw thick
ct near our extemporized camp, ''Lis'n,
mars, lis'n, dar, he's a-droppin', he's
a-droppin', sho's yo' bo'n!n 1 could
not see the bird, and before I could get
my attention rightly fixed upon the song
it had ended.
Something of the rare aroma, so to
speak, of the curiously modulated trills
and quayers fingered in my memory,
however, along with Uncle JOS graphic
description of the birds actions. After
that was on the lookout for an oppor-
tunity to verify the negro's statements.
/ have not exactly kept the date of my
first actual observation, but it was late
in April, or very early in May; for the
crab-apple trees, growing wild in the
Georgian hills, were in full bloom and
spring had come to stay. / had been
out since the first sparkle of daylight.
The sun was rising, and l had been
standing quite still for some minutes,
watching hooking bird that was sing
ing in snatchy, broken way, as it fiut-
tered about in thick-topped crab-apple
tree thirty yards distant from me. Sud-
denly the bird, fine specimen, leaped
like flash to the highest spray of the
tree and began to futter In a trem-
bling, peculiar way, with its wings half
spread and its feathers puffed out Al
most Immediately there came strange,
gurgling series of notes, liquid and sweet,
that seemed to express utter rapture.
Then the bird dropped, with a backward
motion, from the spray, and began to
fall slowly and somewhat spirally down
through the bloom-covered boughs. Its
progress was quite like that of bird
wounded to death by shot, clinging
here and there to twig, quivering, and
weakly striking with its wings as it fell,
but all the time it was pouring forth the
most exquisite gushes and trills of song,
not at all like its usual medley of impro-
vised limitations, but strikingly, almost
startlingly, individual and unique. The
bird appeared to be dying of an ecstasy
of musical inspiration. The lower it
fell the louder and more rapturous be-
came its voice, until the song ended on
the ground in burst of incompatible
vocal power. It remained for short
time, after its song was ended, crouch
ing where it had fallen, with its wings
outspread, and quivering and painting
as if utterly exhausted; then it leaped
boldly into the air and few away into
an adjacent thicket. Since then, as
have said, three other opportunities
have been afforded me of witnessing
this curiously pleasing exhibition OF
bird-acting. | can half imagine what
another ode Keats might have written
had his eyes seen and his ears heard
that strange, fascinating, dramatically
rendered song. Grit might better have
suited Shelley's powers of expression.
It is said that the grandest bursts of
oratnry are those which contain strong
trace of a reserve of power. This may
be true; but is not the best song that
wherein the voice sweeps, with the last
expression of ecstasy, from wave to
wave of music until with a supreme eff
fort it wreaks its fullest power, thus
ending in a victory over the final OBJ
stacle, as if with its utmost reachp Be
this as it may, whoever may be fortu-
nate enough to hear the mocking-bird' s
.'dropping song" and at the same time
see the birds action, will at once have
the idea of genius, pure and simple,
suggested to him.-Atldntic Monthly.
~