BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 411 



"The rest is soon told, or rather it would be could the secrets 

 of the impenetrable dark-green mass of smilax, whither the 

 pair betake themselves, be unclad. The next we see of the 

 bird he is perched upon the topmost spray of yonder pear tree, 

 with quivering wings, brim full of song. He is inspired. For 

 a time, at least, he is lifted above the commonplace. His 

 kinship with the prince of song — with the Mocking Bird him- 

 self, is vindicated. He has discovered the poetry of every-day 

 life " 



The Catbird is among the earliest of our morning songsters. 

 Often his notes may be distinctly heard before the dawn is 

 appreciable to human eyes, and if watched afterward he may 

 be seen flitting noiselessly from bush to bush, with a nervous 

 energy that expresses more than almost anything else the de- 

 liciousness of the summer morning hours. His melody is 

 scarcely inferior to that of any other member of his melodious 

 family, notwithstanding so great an authority as the careful, 

 attentive Wilson says: "His notes are more remarkable for sin- 

 gularity than for melody." Perhaps the distinguished ornithol- 

 ogist's penchant for playing practical jokes upon this very 

 excitable and demonstrative bird deprived him of his best op- 

 portunities for taking in the fullest capacities of his song. He 

 says that he sometimes amused himself, in passing through the 

 woods, with imitating the violent chirping or squeaking of 

 young birds, in order to observe what different species were 

 around him, and says, "for such sounds at such a season in the 

 woods are no less alarming to the feathered tenants of the 

 bushes than the cry of tire or murder in the streets is to the 

 inhabitants of a large and prosperous city. 



"On such occasions of alarm and consternation, the Catbird 

 is the first to make his appearance, not singly but sometimes half 

 a dozen at a time flying from different quarters to the spot. 

 At this time those who are disposed to play with his feelings 

 may almost throw him into fits, his emotion and agitation are 

 so great at the distressful cry of what he supposes to be his 

 suffering young. Other birds are variously affected, but none 

 show symptoms of such extreme suffering. He hurries back- 

 wards and forwards with hanging wings and open mouth, call- 

 ing out louder and faster, and actually screaming with distress, 

 till he appears hoarse with his exertions. He attempts no 

 offensive means, but bewails, implores, in the most pathetic 

 terms with which nature has supplied him, and with an agony 

 of feeling which is truly affecting. Every feathered neighbor 



