The Birds' Calendar 



direction I soon found it perching in a low 

 bush, furtively looking about and jerking its 

 tail like a cat-bird. I mentally re([ut^ted him 

 to hold his head still for examination, for the 

 characteristic markings of a bird radiate from 

 the seat of intelligence. A shrike's bill is 

 stout, and curved at the end, and a black stripe 

 passes through the eye ; this one's bill was 

 straight and slender, and the side of the face of 

 uniform color ; while in flying off again it dis- 

 closed pure white outer tail-feathers, with much 

 white on the remainder, — no shrike, but the 

 mocking-bird ! — the genius of the thrush fam- 

 ily, — the cat-bird, before the latter fell from 

 grace. But what brought him to New York 

 the last of December ? It is a thoroughly 

 Southern species, and it is quite the thing to 

 explain its occasional appearance in the North- 

 ern States, and especially in winter, by calling 

 it an escaped caged specimen ; an inference 

 that seems somehow to detract not a little from 

 the credit of finding it. But I am convinced 

 that in the present instance such a supposition 

 is an injustice both to the bird and to myself. 

 Without any doubt, this particular specimen 

 wandered up from the South entirely of its own 

 volition, and lingered about the Park for my 



334 



