If ever you do that take a thrush for first choice. The robin, the bluebird, the brown thrasher and the mocking bird are thrushes. Nearly all the thrushes have beautiful manners and sweet singing voices. The mocking bird is one of the greatest singers of the feathered world. He is all our own, too for he is not found in any country of the old world. He nests in our warm southern states. But once in a great while he comes north. So, it was the pride of the doctor's heart to have a pair of mockers nesting in a spruce tree in his garden, for two or three summers.

When the mocking bird begins to sing he springs or bounds upward, as if too happy to stay on the earth. The mocking bird is as long as the robin, but more slender, In color he is rather sober— gray above, with dark brown wings and tail that are tipped and lined with white. When the moon is full he often sings all night long. The only other bird that does this is the old-world nightingale. Our great poet, Longfellow, describes the mocking bird's song in Evangeline :

Robin

Mocking Bird

"Then, from a neighboring thicket, the mocking bird, wildest of singers, Shook from his little throat such a flood of delirious music, That the whole air, and the woods, and the waters, seemed silent to listen."

Beside his own song he mocks all the other birds. He warbles and chirps and whistles; he twitters and trills, so you might think all the birds were holding concert when he sings.

The mocker's nearest rival in the garden was a red-brown-backed cousin, with a brown-spotted vest of cream color. Sometimes he is called the brown thrasher, from the way he thrashes his tail about. And he is called the brown mocker, too. One thing he does is to mock himself. He perches on a lofty branch of a tree to sing. Long black bill open and pointing skyward, he sings a song "like a babble of water in a brook." When the song is finished he seems to say: "I wonder if I could do that again." And he does it, exactly as he did it before. The English poet Browning has noticed it:

"That's the wise thrush, who sings each song twice over, As if you might think he never could re-capture. The first, wild, careless rapture."

Besides his own song, "twice over," the brown thrush sings choice bits from a dozen other bird songs, one after the other. " Hear me! Hear me!" he trills: "I can sing this, and this and this. Oh, the joy of it,—under the blue—in the sweet wind—swinging. Don't you wish—you could do it ? Try, try try, yes you can, truly, truly!" Such a little cataract of melody, to fall from the high branch of an elm.

The cat bird is a mocker, too. He is a thrush who can sing a pretty song when he wants to. But he is a saucy fellow. He caws like a crow and meows like a cat, to scare his timid neighbors into spasms, and to waken Rob Roy from his nap. Then he laughs at the joke. Do you know Mr. Cat Bird? He is quite a dandy, in a coat of London smoke and a pearl vest. He has a rusty red tail that he jerks about when he sings. He skulks under bushes, and pounces on his creeping prey like a little feathered wild-cat.

Four Common Seed-Eating Birds, 1 Junco; 2 White-Throated Sparrow; 3 Fox Sparrow; 4 Tree Sparrow.

If the bluebird is the sapphire of the air, there is no jewel at all to compare with the glowing orange of the Baltimore oriole. He is a cousin of the blackbirds, as you might know from his velvet black wings and tail, and his flute-like whistle. His olive-backed, lemon-breasted mate sings, too, a lovely alto to his clear soprano. They sing the dearest duet you ever could hear. The orchard oriole has a black coat and hat, too, but his vest is a reddish brown, and his wings and tail are barred with white. He and his dull, olive and yellow mate sing duets, too, in richer, less whistling voices than the Baltimore. If you are not sure of the orchard orioles look for their pretty, sky-blue shoes and stockings.