Mocking Bird

Mocking Bird [now Northern Mockingbird]
Turdus polyglottus [now Mimus polyglottos]
Folio edition, plate 21

In A Summer of Birds, Danny Heitman discusses the controversy that Audubon’s depiction of this rattlesnake attacking a mockingbird’s nest aroused, noting that “the picture is mesmerizing” but it is “open to debate whether Audubon’s eye-popping portrayal . . . was grounded in his field observations.” 

Audubon’s great affection for these birds is evident in his ebullient description of them in Ornithological Biography, which includes this assertion of their musical superiority among birds: “The musical powers of this bird have often been taken notice of by European naturalists. . . . Some of these persons have described the notes of the Nightingale as occasionally fully equal to those of our bird. I have frequently heard both species in confinement, and in the wild state, and without prejudice, have not hesitation in pronouncing the notes of the European Philomel equal to those of a soubrette [a soprano who sings supporting roles in comic opera] of taste, which, could she study under a MOZART, might perhaps in time become very interesting in her way. But to compare her essays to the finished talent of the Mocking Bird, is, in my opinion, quite absurd.”

Danny Heitman, A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2008), p. 46.

John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, or An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America (Edinburgh: A. Black [et al.], 1831), vol. 1, p. 112-113.

View bird in National Audubon Society Guide to North American Birds.

A specimen of this species, collected by Audubon, is housed within the collections of the Natural History Museum in London.