344 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



to harass the snake until it was 100 feet away at a place where it 

 was finally shot by Mr. Morris. G. M. Sutton (1928) reports two 

 cases of catbirds' eggs destroyed by blacksnakes at Pymatuning 

 Swamp, Pa. There are many reports of eggs and young that 

 have been ravaged by snakes, indicating that the latter rank as one 

 of the worst enemies of nesting catbirds. Catbirds that build their 

 nests in the yards and gardens near the homes of man are subject 

 to attacks by the domestic cat. E. D. Nauman (1912) relates an 

 experience in which a pair of nesting catbirds were being molested 

 by a cat at 11 o'clock at night. He was attracted to the nesting 

 site by the fluttering and distress calls of the adults. The cat had 

 climbed the nesting boxelder tree and was within 2 feet of the nest 

 when it was violently driven away by the use of a club. The pair 

 was not molested again and succeeded in rearing their young. 



Rats also may be a factor in the lives of the catbirds. In correspond- 

 ence received from Hervey Brackbill he writes as follows : "Less than 

 10 minutes after a young bird, on its first day out of the nest, had 

 fluttered from a bush to the ground and hopped off into a little wood 

 lot, a rat appeared, slowly nosing its way in the same direction. 

 Quickly one of the catbirds came on the scene and, perching on one 

 thing and another — twigs and a wire fence — just above the rat, fol- 

 lowed it along, queuh-ing continuously. The rat paid no attention, 

 but went into the brush pile about 25 feet short of the young bird. 

 The parent then perched here and there on the brush pile, still calling, 

 until finally the rat reappeared and began working slowly back the 

 way it had come. Now the adult catbird actually dropped to the 

 ground and hopped after the rat, sometimes only a foot or two behind, 

 queuh-ing^ and even held its ground when once the rat half turned and 

 gazed at it for a second or more. Only when the rat had gone about 

 25 feet from the young bird did the parent's alarm subside; then it 

 stopped calling and flew back to the fledgling." 



Catbirds nesting in more remote situations along forest fringes are 

 subject to prey by predaceous mammals and birds. P. L. Errington 

 (1935) found that Midwest foxes include the catbird in their food. 



W. J. Breckenridge (1935) in his ecological study of Minnesota 

 marsh hawks found the catbird among other birds in the food eaten 

 by these birds. A. H. Howell (1932) states that the duck hawk feeds 

 on the catbird. Etta M. Morse (1923) found the remains of a catbird 

 in the stomach of a long-eared owl that had molested a brood of cat- 

 birds she was observing near her home in AVoonsocket, S. Dak. These 

 representative records indicate that predaceous birds and mammals 

 take their toll of catbirds. 



There have been instances in which the catbird has been molested or 

 evicted from their nests by other passerine birds. Mrs. George W. 

 Trine (1935) states that the eggs of a catbird were destroyed by 



