THE CATBIRD. 323 



sides lia\-e iheir share; but tliey also dis|)lay a decided preference lor tiie 

 vicinage of man, and, if allowed to, will frequent the orchards and the rasp- 

 berry bushes. They help themselves pretty freely to the fruit of the latter, 

 but their services in insect-eating compensate for their keep, a hundred-fold. 

 Xests are placed almost anywhere at moderate heights, but thickety places are 

 preferred, and the wild rosebush is acknowledged to be the ideal spot. The 

 birds exhibit the greatest distress when their nest is disturbed, and the entire 

 neigliborhood is aroused to expressions of sympathy by their ])itiful cries. 



AIv friend. Dr. James Ball Naylor, of Malta, Ohio, tells the following 

 story in answer to the oft-repeated c^uestion. Do animals reason? The poet's 

 house nestles against the base of a wooded hill and looks out upon a spacious 

 well-kept lawn which is studded with elm trees. The place is famous for 

 birds and the neighborhood is equally famous for cats. Robins occasionally 

 \enture to glean angle worms upon the inviting expanses of this lawn, but for 

 a bird to attempt to cross it unaided by wing would be to invite destruction 

 as in the case of a lone soldier climbing San Juan hill. One day, however, a 

 fledgling Catbird, overweening and disobedient, we fear, fell from its nest 

 overhead and sat helpless on the dreaded slopes. The parents were beside 

 themselves with anxiety. The birdie could not fl\- and would n<it tlntter to 

 anv purpose. There was no enemy in sight but it was only- by the sufferance of 

 fate, and moments were precious. In the midst of it all the mother disap- 

 peared and returned presently with a fat green worm, which she held u]) to 

 baby at a foot's remove. Baby hopped and floundered forward to the juicy 

 morsel, but when he had covered the first foot, the dainty was still si.x inches 

 awa\'. ]\Iama promised it to him with a flood of encouragement for every 

 effort, but as often as the infant advanced the mother retreated, renewing 

 her blandishments. In this way she coaxed her baby across the lawn and up, 

 twig by twig, to the fop of an osage-orange hedge which bounded it. Here, 

 according to Dr. Naylor, she fed her chi!d the worm. 



Ci>m])aring the scolding and call notes of the Catbird with the mewing of 

 a cat has perhaps been a little overdone, but the likeness is strong enough to 

 lodge in the mind and to fasten the bird's "trivial name" upon it forever. Be- 

 sides a mellow pluit. phut in the bush, the bird has an aggravating mee-a-a, 

 and a petulant call note whicli is nothing less than Ma-a-ry. Cautious to a 

 degree and timi<l. the bird is nfiener heard in the depth of the thicket than 

 elsewhere, but he sometimes mounts the tree-top, and the cTpening "Phut. phut, 

 cnqiiillicflt" — as Neltje Blanchan hears it — is the promise of a treat. 



Generalizations are apt to be inadequate when applied to singers of such 

 brilliant and varied gifts as the Catbird's It would be impertinent to say: 

 Romo sapiens has a cultivated \'oice and produces music of the highest order. 

 Some of us do and some of us do not. Similarly .some Catbirds are "self- 

 conscious and affected." "pause after each phrase to mark its effect u|)on the 



