Page 71 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

10 THIRD BOOK OF
aerial tribes. When this repast is over, he returns to man, and pays the little tribute which he owes him for his protection. He takes his station on a tree close to his house, and there, r hours together, pours rth a succession of imitative notes. His own
song is sweet, but very short. If a toucan be yelping . in the neighbourhood, the cassique drops his song and imitates him; then he will amuse his protector with the cries of the di erent species of the wood­ pecker; and when the sheep bleat, he will distinctly answer them; then comes his own song again; and if a puppy dog or a Guinea-fowl interrupt him, he takes it o admirably, and by his di erent gestures during the time, you would conclude that he enjoys the sport.
2. The cassique is gregarious, and imitates any sound he hears with such exactness, that he goes by no other name than that of mocking-bird among the colonists. At breeding time, a number of these pretty choristers resort to a tree near the planter's house, and om its outside branches weave their pendulous nests. So conscious o they seem ·that they never give o ence, and so little suspicious are they of receiving any injury om man, that they will choose a tree within rty yards om his house, and occupy the branches so low down, that he may peep into their nests. A tree in Warratilla Creek a ords a proof of this.
3. The proportions of the cassique are so ne, that he may be said to be a model of symmetry in orni­ thology. On each wing he has a brjght yellow spot;' his belly and half the tail are of the same colour; au the rest of the body is black; his beak is the colour of sulphur, but it des in death, and requires the