"Throw his head back and open his yellow-lined beak" "He scrambled to the bars of the cage--which his feeble companion was unable to do" "For it was his own image in the looking-glass of a bureau" "His bath" "When he smoothed his feathers" "And as many times slid down the smooth surface of the mirror and wounded himself upon the perilous pin-cushion" "The most elegant, trim ... little dandy" "A sidelong, inquiring posture of the head, ... Is she gone?" "He eats very often" "Bob never neglects to wipe his beak after each meal" "He stretches his body until he seems incredibly tall" "When he is cold, he makes himself into a round ball of feathers" "When his feathers fall. He is then unspeakably dejected.... every feather dropped from his tail" "We have only to set Bob's cage where a spot of sunshine will fall on it.... up goes his beak, and he is off" BOB The Mocking-Bird Superb and sole, upon a pluméd spray That o'er the general leafage boldly grew, He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay Of languid doves when long their lovers stray, And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew At morn in brake or bosky avenue. Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say. Then down he shot, bounced airily along The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again. Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain: How may the death of that dull insect be The life of yon trim Shakspere on the tree? BOB Not that his name _ought_ to be Bob at all. In respect of his behavior during a certain trying period which I am presently to recount, he ought to be called Sir Philip Sidney: yet, by virtue of his conduct in another very troublesome business which I will relate, he has equal claim to be known as Don Quixote de la Mancha: while, in consideration that he is the Voice of his whole race, singing the passions of all his fellows better than any one could sing his own, he is clearly entitled to be named William Shakspere. For Bob is our mocking-bird. He fell to us out of the top of a certain great pine in a certain small city on the sea-coast of Georgia. In this tree and a host of his lordly fellows which tower over that little city, the mocking-birds abound in unusual numbers. They love the prodigious masses of the leaves, and the generous breezes from the neighboring Gulf Stream, and, most of all, the infinite flood of the sunlight which is so rich and cordial that it will make even a man lift his head towards the sky, as a mocking-bird lifts his beak, and try to sing something or other. [Illustration: "Bob lying in a lump"]