repeats the tune taught him, though it be of considerable length, with
great accuracy. He runs over the notes of the canary, and of the red
bird, with such superior execution and effect, that the mortified
songsters confess his triumph by their silence. His fondness for
variety, some suppose to injure his song. His imitations of the brown
thrush is often interrupted by the crowing of cocks; and his exquisite
warblings after the blue bird, are mingled with the screaming of
swallows, or the cackling of hens. During moonlight, both in the wild
and tame state, he sings the whole night long. The hunters, in their
night excursions, know that the moon is rising the instant they begin to
hear his delightful solo. After Shakspeare, Barrington attributes in
part the exquisiteness of the nightingale's song to the silence of the
night; but if so, what are we to think of the bird which in the open
glare of day, overpowers and often silences all competition? His natural
notes partake of a character similar to those of the brown thrush, but
they are more sweet, more expressive, more varied, and uttered with
greater rapidity.

The _Yellow breasted Chat_ naturally follows his superior in the
art of mimicry. When his haunt is approached, he scolds the passenger in
a great variety of odd and uncouth monosyllables, difficult to describe,
but easily imitated so as to deceive the bird himself, and draw him
after you to a good distance. At first are heard short notes like the
whistling of a duck's wings, beginning loud and rapid, and becoming
lower and slower, till they end in detached notes. There succeeds
something like the barking of young puppies, followed by a variety of
guttural sounds, and ending like the mewing of a cat, but much hoarser.

The song of the _Baltimore Oriole_ is little less remarkable than
his fine appearance, and the ingenuity with which he builds his nest.