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THE STORY OF OUR MOCKING-BIRD
By Sidney Lanier
New York,
A.D. Mdccccx
Copyright, 1899, by Mary Day Lanier
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Prefatory Note
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he poet Sidney Lanier loved to swing in full-muscled walks throughthe fields and woods; to take the biggest bow and quiver out of thearchery implements provided for himself and his brood of boys, andwith them trailing at his heels, to tramp and shoot at rovers; tobestride a springy horse and ride through the mountains and thevalleys, noting what they were pleased to show of tree and bird andbeast life. He could feel the honest savage instinct of the hunter(and lose it in his first sight of a stag's death-eyes). A rare bird'snest with eggs produced in him the rapture vouchsafed to barbarianBoy, along with the divine suggestions vouchsafed to the Poet. Thismay be worth while to say to those of Lanier's readers who may thinkof him as a sensitive, delicate man of letters, and who must see inmost of his writing evidences of extreme sensibility. It was thishabit of a practical, face-to-face conversation with nature which,joined with the artist's instinct, makes the sketch of "Bob" soveracious a picture of a bird-individual and a bird-species. Lanier'swife and children remember well the delight the bird had for hisbrother artist; how the amused flute would trill with extravagantgraces to the silent but heedful wonder of the caged one. Everysurprising token of intelligence, of affection, of valor displayed byBob was hailed by Mr. Lanier with a boy's ecstacy over a pet, and apoet's thankfulness of a beautiful work of the Creator.
There is, doubtless, no need to assure the reader that the events ofBob's life as hereinafter depicted are historically true; he wasacquired by one of the poet's boys, who, forbidden to rob nests,remembers his fear, on the way home with Bob in his straw hat, thatthe account of the bird's helpless condition would not serve as a fairand reasonable excuse for keeping him as a pet.
The illustrations which form so important a part of the effort to makea picture of Bob, are unusual in their origin and in their method. Mr.Dugmore made photographic studies of a young mocking-bird, or, rather,of a number of young mocking-birds, the photographs were colored byhim, and the plates from these photographs were printed in color. Thevariety of rare tints in any bird's plumage, their extreme delicacy,and