2 5 6 



THE CATBIRD. 



talented singers known. One such I remember, which, overcome by the charms 

 of a May day sunset, mounted the tip of a pasture elm, and poured forth a 

 hymn of praise in which every voice of woodland and field was laid .under con- 

 tribution. Yet all were suffused by the singer's own emotion. Oh, how that 

 voice rang out upon the still evening air ! The bird sang with true feeling, 

 an artist in every sense, and the delicacy and accuracy of his phrasing must 

 have silenced a much more captious critic than I. Never at a loss for a note, 

 never pausing to ask himself what he should sing next, he went steadily on, 

 now with a phrase from Robin's song, now with the shrill cry of the Red- 

 headed Woodpecker, each softened and refined as his own infallible musical 



taste dictat- 

 ed ; now and 

 again he in- 

 t e r spersed 

 these with 

 bits of his 

 own none less 

 b e a utiful. 

 The carol of 

 the Vireo,the 

 tender ditties 

 of the Song 

 and Vesper 

 Spa rrows, 

 and the more 

 pretent ious 

 efforts of the 

 G r o s beaks, 

 had all im- 

 pressed 

 them selves 

 upon this 



musician's ear, and he repeated them, not slavishly, but with discernment and 

 deep appreciation. As the sun sank lower in the west I left him there, a dull 

 gray bird, with form scarcely outlined against the evening sky, but my soul 

 had taken flight with his up into that blest abode where all Nature's voices 

 are blended into one, and all music is praise. 



l 



Taken near Waverly. 



Photo by Rev. 

 AN EARI/Y NEST. 



