: Argentine Ornithology, Volume I (of 2) by P. L Sclater, W. H Hudson (books to read in your 20s female .txt) 📖

feathers edged with white

    and grey; tail black, tipped with white; bill and feet black; eye

    olive-green: total length 9·2 inches, wing 4·2, tail 4·0. _Female_

    similar, but smaller in size and lighter in colour.

 

_Hab._ Northern Patagonia.

 

The Patagonian Mocking-bird, which I met with during my sojourn on the

Rio Negro of Patagonia in 1871, closely resembles the species just

described, but is smaller, the plumage is of a darker grey, and the

irides are also of a darker green. It is a common bird, resident, lives

alone or with its mate, feeds on insects and berries, and in its manner

of flight and habits is like _Mimus modulator_. The nest is made in

the centre of a bush of thorns and sticks, and lined with dry grass,

cow-hair, or other soft material; and the eggs are four in number,

bluntly pointed, and thickly marked with dark flesh-coloured spots.

When the nest is approached the parent birds come close to the intruder,

often perching within a yard of his head, but without uttering any

sound, differing in this respect from _M. modulator_.

 

The song of the Patagonian bird is in character like that of the

northern species, the variety of its notes being apparently infinite;

there are, however, some differences worth mentioning. The singing

of the Patagonian species is perhaps inferior, his voice being less

powerful, while his mellow and clear notes are constantly mingled with

shrill ones, resembling the cries of some of the Dendrocolaptine birds.

While incapable of notes so loud or so harsh as those of the northern

bird, or of changes so wild and sudden, he possesses even a greater

variety of soft notes. Day after day for many months I have heard them

singing, yet never once listened to them for any length of time without

hearing some note or phrase I had never heard before. The remarks I have

made concerning the Calandria's mocking-faculties also apply to this

bird: but though he does not actually repeat the notes and songs of

other species, he certainly does mock the notes of individuals of his

own species; for it must be borne in mind that no two individuals sing

quite alike, and that the same bird constantly introduces new notes into

his song, and never repeats his notes in the same order. I have often

observed that when a bird, while singing, emits a few of these _new_

notes, he seems surprised and delighted with them; for, after a silent

pause, he repeats them again and again a vast number of times, as if

to impress them on his memory. When he once more resumes his varied

singing, for hours, and sometimes for days, the expression he has

discovered is still a favourite one, and recurs with the greatest

frequency. But this is not all. If the new note or phrase happens to be

a very striking one, it immediately takes the fancy of all the other

birds within hearing, and often in a small thicket there will be a dozen

or twenty birds near together, each sitting perched on the summit of his

own bush. After the new wonderful note has been sounded they all become

silent and attentive, reminding one in their manner of a caged Parrot

listening to a sound it is trying to learn. Presently they learn it,

and are as pleased with its acquisition as if they had discovered it

themselves, repeating it incessantly. I noticed this curious habit of

the bird many times, and on one occasion I found that for three entire

days all the birds in a small thicket I used to visit every day did

nothing but repeat incessantly two or three singular notes which they

had borrowed from one of their number. The constant repetition of this

one sound had a strongly irritating effect on me; but a day or two later

they had apparently got tired of it themselves, and had resumed their

usual varied singing.

 

This bird usually sits still upon the summit of a bush when singing,

and its music is heard in all seasons and in all weathers from dawn

till after dark: as a rule it sings in a leisurely unexcited manner,

remaining silent for some time after every five or six or a dozen notes,

and apparently listening to his brother-performers. These snatches of

melody often seem like a prelude or promise of something better coming;

there is often in them such exquisite sweetness and so much variety that

the hearer is ever wishing for a fuller measure, and still the bird

opens his bill to delight and disappoint him, as if not yet ready to

display his whole power.

8. MIMUS TRIURUS (Vieill.). (WHITE-BANDED MOCKING-BIRD.) [Plate I.]

+Mimus triurus+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 3; _Hudson, P. Z. S._

      1872, p. 539 (Rio Negro); _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 593 (Buenos

      Ayres); _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 475 (Mendoza, Cordova, and

      Tucuman); _Sharpe, Cat. B._ vi. p. 342.

 

    _Description._--Above grey, brown on the rump; beneath light grey,

    white on the belly; wing black, crossed with a broad white band;

    tail white, except the two middle feathers, which are black; bill

    and feet black; eye orange-yellow: total length 9·5 inches, wing

    4·8, tail 4·2. _Female_ similar.

 

_Hab._ Paraguay, Argentine Republic, and Bolivia.

 

Azara first met with this king of the Mocking-birds in Paraguay a

century ago; he named it "Calandria de las tres colas," and described

the plumage accurately, but was, I think, mistaken about the colour of

the eye, which is orange-red and not olive-green. He says that it is a

rare species, possessing no melodious notes, which proves at once that

he never heard it sing. D'Orbigny obtained it in Bolivia, Bridges in

Mendoza, and more recently it his been found by collectors in various

parts of the Argentine country, even in Buenos Ayres, where, however, it

is probably only an occasional visitor. But they have told us nothing of

its song and of its miraculous mocking-powers. For my part I can think

of no other way to describe the surpassing excellence of its melody,

which delights the soul beyond all other bird-music, than by saying that

this bird is among song-birds like the diamond among stones, which in

its many-coloured splendour represents and exceeds the special beauty of

every other gem.

 

I met with this species on the Rio Negro in Patagonia: it was there

called _Calandria blanca_, a name not strictly accurate, since the bird

is not all white, but certainly better than Azara's strange invention of

"Lark with three tails."

 

The bird was not common in Patagonia, and its only language was a very

loud harsh startled note, resembling that of the _Mimus calandria_; but

it was past the love-season when I first met with it, and the natives

all assured me that it possessed a very wonderful song, surpassing the

songs of all other birds; also that it had the faculty of imitating

other species. In manners and appearance it struck me as being utterly

unlike a _Mimus_; in its flight and in the conspicuous white and black

of the wings and tail, it looked like a Tyrant of the _Tænioptera_

group. It was extremely shy, had a swift, easy, powerful flight, and,

when approached, would rise up high in the air and soar away to a great

distance. In February it disappeared from the Rio Negro and did not

return till the following October, after the arrival of all the other

migrants. It was then that I had the rare good fortune to hear it sing,

and I shall never forget the sensation I experienced when listening to

its matchless melody.

 

While walking through a _chañar_-wood one bright morning, my attention

was suddenly arrested by notes issuing from a thicket close by, and

to which I listened in delighted astonishment, so vastly superior in

melody, strength, and variety did they seem to all other bird-music.

That it was the song of a _Mimus_ did not occur to me; for while the

music came in a continuous stream, until I marvelled that the throat of

any bird could sustain so powerful and varied a song for so long a time,

it was never once degraded by the harsh cries, fantastical flights, and

squealing buffooneries so frequently introduced by the Calandria, but

every note was in harmony and uttered with a rapidity and joyous abandon

no other bird is capable of, except, perhaps, the Sky-Lark; while the

purity of the sounds gave to the whole performance something of the

ethereal rapturous character of the Lark's song when it comes to the

listener from a great height in the air.

 

Presently this flow of exquisite unfamiliar music ceased, while I still

remained standing amongst the trees, not daring to move for fear of

scaring away the strange vocalist. After a short interval of silence I

had a fresh surprise. From the very spot whence that torrent of melody

had issued, burst out the shrill, confused, impetuous song of the small

yellow-and-grey Patagonian Flycatcher (_Stigmatura flavo-cinerea_). It

irritated me to hear this familiar and trivial song after the other, and

I began to fear that my entertainer had flown away unobserved. But in

another moment, from the same spot, came the mellow matin-song of the

Diuca Finch, and this was quickly succeeded by the silvery bell-like

trilling song of the Churinche, or little Scarlet Tyrant-bird.

Then followed many other familiar notes and songs--the flute-like

evening-call of the Crested Tinamou, the gay hurried twittering of the

Black-headed Goldfinch, and the leisurely-uttered, delicious strains of

the Yellow Cardinal, all repeated with miraculous fidelity. How much

was my wonder and admiration increased by the discovery that my one

sweet singer had produced all these diverse strains! The discovery was

only made when he began to repeat songs of species that never visit

Patagonia. I knew then that I was at last listening to the famed White

Mocking-bird, just returned from his winter travels, and repeating in

this southern region the notes he had acquired in subtropical forests a

thousand miles away.

 

These imitations at length ceased, after which the sweet vocalist

resumed his own matchless song once more. I ventured then to creep a

little nearer, and at length caught sight of him not fifteen yards away.

I then found that the pleasure of listening to its melody was greatly

enhanced when I could at the same time see the bird, so carried away

with rapture does he seem while singing, so many and so beautiful are

the gestures and motions with which his notes are accompanied. He passes

incessantly from bush to bush, scarcely alighting on their summits, and

at times dropping down beneath the foliage; then, at intervals, soaring

to a height of a hundred feet above the thicket, with a flight slow as

that of a Heron, or mounting suddenly upwards with a wild, hurried,

zigzag motion; then slowly circling downwards, to sit with tail

outspread and the broad glistening white wings expanded, or languidly

waved up and down like the wings of some great butterfly--an object

beautiful to see.

 

When I first heard this bird sing I felt convinced that no other

feathered songster on the globe could compare with it; for besides the

faculty of reproducing the songs of other species, which it possesses in

common with the Virginian Mocking-bird, it has a song of its own, which

I believed matchless; and in this belief I was confirmed when, shortly

after hearing it, I visited England, and found of how much less account

than this Patagonian bird, which no poet has ever praised, were the

sweetest of the famed melodists of the Old World.