JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



47 



at 1.30. Reports of Secretary and 

 Treasurer. Matters of importance will 

 be considered, one of wliicli will be the 

 choosing of an appropriate name for 

 our Journal. Several names have been 

 proposed, among others were Puffin, 

 Snowflake. Waxwing, and Flicker. Mr. 

 Ora W. Knight's new "List of Maine 

 Birds" will be ready for the printer 

 early iu January, and some provision 

 must be made for its publication. 



Friday Evening. 

 Illustrated lecture, to whicli tlie pub- 

 lic are invited. 



Saturday Morning. 



9 o'clock, Report of President and 

 election of officers. 



Presentation of scientific papers. Pa- 

 pers will be presented by Vice Presi- 

 dent Spinney, Secretary-Treasurer 

 Norton, Editor Swain, Ex President 

 Knight, Ex President Mead, Homer 

 Dill, Miss Nettie Burleigh, A. P. Lar- 

 rabee, Johnson of Lewiston, Briggs of 

 Livermore, and others who have not 

 yet reported their subjects. The fore- 

 noon session will close with a lecture 

 by Prof. Stanton of Bates College. 



Saturday Afternoon. 



Unfinished business and papers not 

 read in the morning. 



Special rates will be given at Hotel 

 North, and each member will receive 

 a notice through the mail as soon as 

 Thanksgiving day has been appointed, 

 with a statement of trains and rates. 



Tlie Maine Central will sell tickets 

 at reduced rates from every town 

 where a member resides. 



WM. L. POWERS. 



A PAIR OF CATBIRDS. 



Read before the Annual Meeting of 

 The Maine Ornithological Society, 

 at Lewiston, Dec. 22. 1900. 

 My acquaintance with the Catbird 



was first made back somewhere in the 

 70s, when but a small lad, as I trudged 

 along a hilly country road, in Franklin 

 county, on my way to the little red 

 schoolhouse, situated near a crossroad, 

 and nearly surrounded by an alder 

 thicket. The roads leading to this lit- 

 tle knowledge box (as we often term- 

 ed it) were well lined with alder and 

 willow bushes, well interwoven with 

 tlie vines of the wild clematis. Just a 

 typical place for the Catbird to build 

 its summer home. It was in this dear 

 old rustic spot, associated as it is with 

 so many pleasant memories, that I 

 learned the name of this most interest- 

 ing mocking-bird, and watched its 

 many strange ways and listened for 

 hours, in a dreamy spell, to its va- 

 ried songs and scoldings. 



Here, too, I first found its neatly 

 woven nest of roots and weeds, care- 

 fully concealed from the passer-by, 

 well hidden in the dense foliage of the 

 vines and alders. I gazed with delight 

 into its nest. With four deep, green- 

 ish-blue eggs, and watched the old 

 birds, as they moved about nervously, 

 scolding all the while and trying their 

 best to drive away the school children, 

 who were trespassing upon their 

 rights. 



No doubt a longing desire to possess 

 those treasures came over me, but I 

 had been taught rigidly that they did 

 not belong to me, and that I had no 

 right to touch them. I watched the 

 mother-bird as she fed and cared for 

 her small, helpless nestlings, and I 

 wanted one of them for a cage pet. 

 But the early training, received while 

 at my mother's knee, bade me forbear. 

 One day an older boy, one who had 

 some source from which he learned 

 new and strange facts, announced that 

 the Catbird ate the eggs of the small- 

 er birds, and that we should extermi- 

 nate the Catbird. Here then, was the 

 excuse looked for, to take the eggs of 

 tills bird. But when my father was 

 told the reason for taking the eggs his 



