We imagine that he forgets, from year to year, and must have his memory stirred occasionally. This is particularly so in his imitation of the notes of young birds. We never hear them early in spring or very late in autumn after he has completed his silent molt. In late summer, however, when the baby birds have grown into juveniles, then "old man mocker" takes up his business of mimicking the voices of the late nursery.
AMERICAN MOCKING BIRD.
Until we knew his methods we would start at peculiar sounds in the garden and cry to one another, "There's a late brood of young ones!" and run to locate the tardy family.
From his perch on the chimney the mocker laughs at us, while he squeals, like his own little son of a month old, or coaxes, like a whole nestful of baby linnets.
No matter who is the victim of his mimicry, he loves the corner of a chimney better than any other perch, and carols out into the sky and down into the "black abyss" as if chimneys were made on purpose for mocking-birds.
A neighbor of ours has a graphophone which is used on the lawn for the entertainment of summer guests. Think you that big brass trumpet-throat emits its uncanny sounds for human ears alone? Behind it, or above it, or in front of it, listening and taking notes, is the mocker. Suddenly, next day or next week, we hear, perhaps at midnight, a concert up in the trees—song-sparrows, and linnets, and blackbirds, and young chickens, and shrikes, and pewees, and a host of other musicians, clear and unmistakable. Then as suddenly the whole is repeated through a graphophone, and we listen and laugh, for well we know that the only source of it all is our dear mocker. How he gets the graphophone ring we do not know any more than we know how he comes by all his powers of reproduction. Of practice he has a plenty, and his industry in this respect may be the key to his success.
The male differs so slightly from his mate that the two are indistinguishable save at song-time. They pair in early spring, and are faithfully united in all their duties. They nest mostly in bushes or low branches from four to twenty feet from the ground. The nests are large and often in plain sight. Like the robin and other thrushes, the mocker's first thought is for the foundation. This is made of large sticks and grasses, interlaced and crossed loosely. Upon these the nest proper is placed, of soft materials lined with horsehair or grasses.
With the mockers, as with other birds, there is not a fixed rule as to nesting materials. Outside of a few fundamental principles as to foundations, etc., they select the material at hand. Where cotton is to be obtained they use it, and strings in place of grass. Leaves in the foundation are bulky and little trouble to gather.