THE OTTAWA NATURALIST. 



Vol. XIII. OTTAWA, SEPTEMBER, 1899. No. 6. 



THE BIRDS OF A GARDEN 



By A. C. Tyndali,. 



The garden is a tangle of evergreens, forest trees, and orna- 

 mental shrubs grown wild ; with a few sturdy perennials which 

 grow in the sod beneath them with, apparently, the fixed de- 

 termination not to be overcome by difficulties. Lest anyone 

 take e.xception to the term " garden " as applied to such a 

 wilderness, I may say here, that in the bygone time when the 

 name was given to the half acre or so of ground it covers, the 

 perennials were not as now the neglected children of the soil, 

 but the pride and joy of their careful owners. 



Garden or wilderness, as you will, it is a favorite place of 

 resort and residence with the lesser fowls of the air, and while 

 there is a bird to be found in the neighborhood it is to be found 

 here. Here ma}' be seen the tiny kinglet, with his voice like the 

 note of an elfin horn ; here the scarlet tanager flashes his mili- 

 tary looking figure across the open spaces ; and in the silence 

 of the night it has been my privilege to hear an owl of some 

 species unknown to me, holding forth in a manner imprcssivel\- 

 suggestive of a prediction of all kinds of woe and misfortune for 

 the inmates of the darkness enveloped abode close b\-. 



Chief among the birds who spend their summers in the 

 garden, however, as a bird almost always to be found when he is 

 looked for, is the catbird, whose longtailed, blue-drab figure is 

 to be seen in the mulberry thickets any hour in the day. The 

 catbird comes of good family, numbering among other connect- 

 ions scarcel}' less desirable, the famous mocking-bird as first 

 cousin. He is a fair songster himself, but he might be better, if 

 he would give up the mistaken idea that he is gifted in the same 

 way as his farfamed kinsbird. The great songster of the south 



