5o THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



individuality among birds necessarily results in two 

 things : degrees of energy and degrees of skill. Birds 

 are no more mere machines cast in the same mould 

 than are men, and hence arises the insuperable diffi- 

 culty of giving an account of a bird's habits that 

 every observer will find tallies with his experiences 

 and impressions. A description so general as to do 

 this will not be of any value to those who really wish 

 to know something of the bird-life about them. 



Everybody is supposed to know the Cat-bird, and 

 it deserves to be known. For some unaccountable 

 reason there is a wide-spread prejudice existing, but 

 the birds are worth their weight in gold to every 

 farmer ; are excellent singers, and have such delight- 



Cat-bird. 



ful, pert ways, that no one, not a positive brute, can 

 deliberately do them harm. Their habit of mewing like 

 a cat should prejudice no one against them, for they 

 are not cats nor cat-like, but jolly song-birds who eat 

 enormous quantities of noxious insects and pay ten 

 times over for all the fruit they take. I have heard 



