The Mocking-Bird (Mimus Polyglottus) Mocking-Bird Family
[Called also: NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD, AOU 1998]

Length -- 9 to 10 inches. About the size of the robin. Male and Female -- Gray above; wings and wedge-shaped; tail brownish; upper wing feathers tipped with white; outer tail quills white, conspicuous in flight; chin white; underneath light gray, shading to whitish. Range -- Peculiar to torrid and temperate zones of two Americas. Migrations -- No fixed migrations: usually resident where seen.

North of Delaware this commonest of Southern birds is all too rarely seen outside of cages, yet even in midwinter it is not unknown in Central Park, New York. This is the angel that it is said the catbird was before he fell from grace. Slim, neat, graceful, imitative, amusing, with a rich, tender song that only the thrush can hope to rival, and with an instinctive preference for the society of man, it is little wonder he is a favorite, caged or free. He is a most devoted parent, too, when the four or six speckled green eggs have produced as many mouths to be supplied with insects and berries.