More than one writer has described it as
resembling the song of the white-throat. Even Minot, who in general was
the most painstaking and accurate of observers, as he is one of the most
interesting of our systematic writers, says that the two songs are
"almost exactly" alike. There could be no better example of the
fallibility which attaches, and in the nature of the case must attach,
to all writing upon such subjects. The two songs have about as much in
common as those of the hermit thrush and the brown thrasher, or those of
the song sparrow and the chipper. In other words, they have nothing in
common. Probably in Minot's case, as in so many others of a similar
nature, the simple explanation is that when he thought he was listening
to one bird he was really listening to another.
The Tallahassee road to which I had oftenest resorted, to which, now,
from far Massachusetts, I oftenest look back, the St. Augustine road, so
called, I have spoken of elsewhere. Thither, after packing my trunk on
the morning of the 18th, I betook myself for a farewell stroll. My
holiday was done. For the last time, perhaps, I listened to the
mocking-bird and the cardinal, as by and by, when the grand holiday is
over, I shall listen to my last wood thrush and my last bluebird. But
what then? Florida fields are still bright, and neither mocking-bird nor
cardinal knows aught of my absence.
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