2 June 1999 - mockingbird

I lay awake last night listening to a mockingbird with a memory like a Census Bureau computer. It imitated the call of every bird, frog, insect, car alarm, and science fiction ray gun that mockingbirds have met with or read about since, in my estimation, the mid Pleistocene. All this is to announce and defend its territory, a trick that I think human diplomats could learn from. India and Pakistan, to take one example, could have a lot of fun with that ray gun noise.