THE TIDE HAS TURNED 383 
the top and picked ’em off, just as they grew in pairs, and 
flew away with them as pleased and satisfied as if they 
were picking them for market and were a week ahead of 
the season. Dad was awfully down on them once, but 
one morning about two years ago he got up at daylight 
to try and get the cutworms that were spoiling his early 
cauliflowers, and there were Thrashers and Catbirds doing 
the work for him, watching out for the worms to move 
ground just as clever as a man could. 
“As for the Catbird or New England Mockingbird, trim 
of shape, and shrewd of eye, what should we do without 
him? He is a graphophone in feathers, that Catbird. 
gives us selections from all the popular bird songs of 
the day, with this addition — there is no mechanical 
twang to mar the melody, and when the repertoire is 
ended he improvises by the hour. 
“Ah, the merry, mischievous Mocker, all dressed in a 
parson’s suit of gray, with a solemn black cap on his head 
that is as full of tricks as his throat is of music. 
“You say, ‘ Yes, I know that he is a jolly musician, but 
my father says that he bites the best strawberries and 
cherries, and always on the ripest cheek !’ 
“Well, so he does sometimes; but his ancestors lived 
on that spot where your garden stands before yours did, 
and you have more ways of earning a living than he has. 
Give him something else to eat. Plant a little wild fruit 
along your fences. 
“Some people think that he likes to live in seclusion, 
but he doesn’t; he likes to be near people and perch on a 
clothes-pole to plume and sing. Yes, indeed, and he 
shall nest in the syringa nearest my garden, where he gets 
