With all his virtues, it must be added, however, that this charming bird is a sad tease. There is no sound, whether made by bird or beast about him, that he cannot imitate so clearly as to deceive every one but himself. Very rarely can you find a mocking-bird without intelligence and mischief enough to appreciate his ventriloquism. In Sidney Lanier's college note-book was found written this reflection: "A poet is the mocking-bird of the spiritual universe. In him are collected all the individual songs of all individual natures." Later in life, with the same thought in mind, he referred to the bird as "yon slim Shakespeare on the tree." His exquisite stanzas, "To Our Mocking-bird," exalt the singer with the immortals:
"Trillets of humor,—shrewdest whistle-wit—
Contralto cadences of grave desire,
Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre
Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split
About the slim young widow, who doth sit
And sing above,—midnights of tone entire,—
Tissues of moonlight, shot with songs of fire;—
Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite
Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave
And trickling down the beak,—discourses brave
Of serious matter that no man may guess,—
Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress—
All these but now within the house we heard:
O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird?
• • • • •
Nay, Bird; my grief gainsays the Lord's best right. The Lord was fain, at some late festal time,
That Keats should set all heaven's woods in rhyme,
And Thou in bird-notes. Lo, this tearful night
Methinks I see thee, fresh from Death's despite,
Perched in a palm-grove, wild with pantomime
O'er blissful companies couched in shady thyme.
Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright
Meet with the mighty discourse of the wise,—
'Till broad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats,
'Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes
And mark the music of thy wood-conceits,
And half-way pause on some large courteous word,
And call thee 'Brother,' O thou heavenly Bird!"
Junco
(Junco hyemalis) Finch family
Called also: SNOWBIRD; SLATE-COLORED SNOWBIRD
Length—5.5 to 6.5 inches. About the size of the English sparrow.
Male—Upper parts slate-colored; darkest on head and neck, which are sometimes almost black and marked like a cowl. Gray on breast, like a vest. Underneath white. Several outer tail feathers white, conspicuous in flight.
Female—Lighter gray, inclining to brown.
Range—North America. Not common in warm latitudes. Breeds in the Catskills and northern New England.
Migrations—September. April. Winter resident.
"Leaden skies above; snow below," is Mr. Parkhurst's suggestive description of this rather timid little neighbor, that is only starved into familiarity. When the snow has buried seed and berries, a flock of juncos, mingling sociably with the sparrows and chickadees about the kitchen door, will pick up scraps of food with an intimacy quite touching in a bird naturally rather shy. Here we can readily distinguish these "little gray-robed monks and nuns," as Miss Florence Merriam calls them.