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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MIC-MOL |
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MOCK , an adjective meaning sham, feigned, spurious, falsely imitative. As a verb it means to deride or imitate contemptuously. The derivation of O. Fr. mocquer, mod. moquer; Ital. moccare, from which the English word is adopted, is disputed. Some authorities refer it to Ger. mucken, mucksen, to growl, grumble, which is probably echoic in origin; others to a supposed Late
MOCKING-BIRD, or MOCK-BIRD (as W. Charleton, J. Ray and M. Catesby called it), the popular name of birds belonging to the American sub-family Miminae of the thrushes, Turdidae, differing by having the tarsus scutellate in front, while the typical thrushes have it covered by a single horny plate. Mimus polyglottus, the northern mocking-bird, inhabits the southern part of the United States, being in the north only a summer visitant; it breeds rarely in New England, is seldom found north of the 38th parallel, and migrates to the south in winter, passing that season in the Gulf States and Mexico
resident
Plain in plumage, being greyish brown above and dull white below, while its quills are dingy black, variegated with white, there is little about the mocking-bird's appearance beyond its graceful form to recommend it; but the lively gesticulations it exhibits are very attractive, and therein its European rival in melody is fax surpassed, for the cock-bird mounts aloft in rapid circling flight, and, alighting on a conspicuous perch
demonstrative
interest
pale bluish-green, blotched and spotted with light yellowish-brown. They, as well as the young
snakes
Some twelve or fourteen other species of Mimus have been recognized, mostly from South America; but M. Orpheus seems to be common to some of the Greater Antilles, and M. hilli is peculiar to Jamaica, while the Bahamas have a local race in M. bahamensis. he so-called mountain mocking-bird (Oreoscoptes montanus) is a form not very distant from Mimus; but it inhabits exclusively the plains overgrown with sage-brush (Artemisia) of the interior table-land of North America, and is not at all imitative in its notes, so that it is an instance of a misnomer. Of the various other genera allied to Mimus, the best known are the thrashers (genus Harporhynchus) of which six or eight species are found in North America, which are thrush-like and shy in their habits and do not mimic; and the cat-bird (Galeoscoptes carolinensis), which in addition to having an attractive song, utters clucks, whistles and mewing sounds. The sooty-grey colour that, deepening into blackish-brown on the crown and quills, pervades the whole of its plumagethe lower tail-coverts, which are of a deep chestnut, exceptedrenders it a conspicuous object; and though, for some reason or other, far from being a favourite, it is always willing when undisturbed to become intimate with men's abodes. It has a much wider range on the American continent than the mocking-bird, and is one of the few species that are resident
The name mocking-bird, or more frequently mock-nightingale, is in England occasionally given to some of the warblers (q.v.), especially the blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla), and the sedge-bird (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus). In India and Australia the same name is sometimes applied to other species. (A. N.) End of Article: MOCK If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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