I have stated, when speaking of the nightingale, that birds in which the singing faculty is highly developed, sometimes make the mistake of bursting into song when anxious or distressed or in pain, but that this is not the case with the mocking-birds. Some species of these brilliant songsters of the New World, in their passion for variety (to put it that way), import every harsh and grating cry and sound they know into their song; but, on the other hand, when anxious for the safety of their young, or otherwise distressed, they emit only the harsh and grating sounds--never a musical note. In the sedge-warbler, the harsh, scolding sounds that express alarm, solicitude, and other painful emotions, have also been made a part of the musical performance; but this differs from the songs of most species, the mocking birds included, in the extraordinary rapidity with which it is enunciated; once the song begins it goes on swiftly to the finish, harsh and melodious notes seeming to overlap and mingle, the sound forming, to speak in metaphor, a close intricate pattern of strongly-contrasted colours. Now the song invariably begins with the harsh notes--the sounds which, at other times, express alarm and other more or less painful emotions--and it strikes me as a probable explanation that when the bird in the singing season has been startled into uttering these harsh and grating sounds, as when a stone is flung into the rushes, he is incapable of uttering them only, but the singing notes they suggest and which he is in the habit of uttering, follow automatically.