Catbird SONG-BIRDS. 



thrilling, wild notes, which are to be much preferred. The 

 pathetic quality of its native night music inspired Walt 

 Whitman with the theme of one of his best poems, — that 

 of the Mockingbird searching for his lost mate, singing and 

 calling in his loneliness : — 



"But soft ! sink low ; 

 Soft ! let me just murmur, 



And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea ; 

 For somewhere, I believe, I heard my mate responding to me. 

 So faint — I must be still, be still to listen ; 



But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately 

 to me." 



Catbird: Galeoscoptes carolinensis* 



Plate 13. 



Length : 8.50-9 inches. 



Male and Female : Above clear, deep slate. Under parts lighter gray. 



Crown and tail black. Vent rust-red. Bill and feet black. 

 Song : A brilliant recitative, varied and inimitable, beginning, " Prut 1 



Prut ! coquillicot ! really, really, coquillicot 1 Hey coquillicot ! 



Hey! Victory!" Alarm cry, "zeay ! zeay ! " like a metallic 



mewing. 

 Season : Early May to October and November. 

 Breeds : From Gulf States northward to the Saskatchewan. 

 Nest : In bushes, of the type of the nests of the Thrushes, but without 



clay. 

 Eggs : 4-6, clear green-blue. 

 Bange : Eastern United States and southern British Provinces, west 



to, and including, the Rocky Mountains ; occasional on the 



Pacific coast. Winters in the Southern States, Cuba and Middle 



America to Panama. Accidental in Europe. 



Next to the Thrushes, no bird would be so much missed 

 from the garden as the (to my mind misnamed) Catbird. 

 For it is as a garden bird that it is best known here, although 

 Wilson Flagg considers it more frequently a tenant of woods 

 and pastures. I have found it nesting in all sorts of places, 

 from an alder bush, overhanging a lonely brook, to a scrub 

 apple in an open field, but never in deep woods, and it is 

 when in its garden home, and in the hedging bushes of an ad- 



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