A group of women is responsible for Texas naming the northern mockingbird as its state bird.
It happened back in November 1926, when the 50,000-member Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs nominated the bird to represent Texas. The Texas legislature agreed with the women and adopted a resolution unanimously declaring that the mockingbird “is found in all parts of the state, in winter and in summer, in the city and in the country, on the prairie and in the woods and hills, and it is a singer of distinctive type, fighting for the protection of its home, falling, if need be, in its defense, like any true Texan.”
Evidently, other states shared this enthusiasm, for the “many-tongue mimic,” because Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Florida subsequently made it their state bird as well.
