THRUSH COUSINS 



begin to swear. However we are not surprised, for we 

 know the Catbird to be a great scold. 



One will find the rather bulky nests of this bird almost 

 everywhere in the thickets. Some are old and aban- 

 doned; the new ones, from the last of May and on, 

 will contain four or five very dark blue eggs, and 

 later young. When one comes near the bird flies off, 

 and then begins to mew and scold at a great rate, yet 

 I never heard of one turning "thrasher." For all that, 

 though, the average Catbird is bolder then than the 

 average Brown Thrasher. At such times I have been 

 able to "snapshoot" them with the reflecting camera, 

 watching the opportunity when the bird comes out for 

 a moment upon some open branch where the sunlight 

 strikes it. If we pose the camera near the nest, our 

 formerly bold friend becomes very suspicious and It 

 is no easy matter to get a photograph. At one time 

 when I tried it, I could not for the life of me see the 

 old bird on the nest when I crept up. The eggs were 

 warm, and I knew she had sneaked off when she heard 

 me coming, so I laid the thread away out into the 

 pasture and pulled it from afar, after waiting a good 

 long time to give her the chance to return. Twice I 

 tried It, and in both cases, when I developed the nega- 

 tive, I saw that I had caught the sly fox. 



The Mockingbird, celebrated for its song, belongs to 

 the same order as Catbird and Thrasher. Though it 

 is doubtless the best singer among them, these others 

 are not so very far behind. It is a good deal like the 



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