FAMILY Trogiodytidz. 
would necessitate the employment of both treble and 
bass staffs. His song is no ordinary one; it is like some 
long rigmarole the drift of which is humorously incom- 
prehensible, though the bird apparently considers his 
remarkable strophes both serious and important. Listen 
to him sometime while he is singing in the shalowy 
tangies of the briers and willows through which winds 
the brook with gurgling, petulant impatience, and you 
will hear some unmistakable tuneful expostulations. 
persuasions, and remonstrances, nearly half of which 
are delivered sotto voce, and the rest with emphatic 
insistence on some point which the bird considers vitally 
important. When he has finished you will wonder 
what it was all about—whether he was telling the 
brook that such fretful slipping over the pebbly shallows 
was an undignified and needlessly noisy proceeding. But 
the music is no index to the sentiments of the bird; the 
drift of his remarks still remains a mystery even if one 
reads with ease this simple notation: 
‘The keys weréa trifle dubious. 
Bird N° 2 
O 
a) 
dolce atest rf staccato, “delicato.”"” smorzando, 
Some of the notes are like those of the Robin, others re- 
semble those of the Red-eyed Vireo, and still others those 
of the Chat. But the Catbird’s music is all his own; he 
suggests the songs of various birds—never delivers the 
aotes in their way! His voice is not as strong as that of 
the Thrasher, nor can he sing as well as that bird, but his 
song is refined, sprightly, and interesting although dis: 
jointed, jumbled, and lacking in melody. His catlike 
Me Oy every one knows, but not all are familiar 
212 
