MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 9 



crooning over, and, as it were, rehearsing their song in an 

 undertone, which makes their nearness always unobtrusive. 

 Though there is the most trustworthy witness to the imitative 

 propensity of this bird, I have only once, during an intimacy 

 of more than forty years, heard him indulge it. In that case, 

 the imitation was by no means so close as to deceive, but a 

 free reproduction of the notes of some other birds, especially 

 of the oriole, as a kind of variation in his own song. 

 The catbird is as shy as the robin is vulgarly familiar. 

 Only when his nest or his fledglings are approached does he 

 become noisy and almost aggressive. I have known him to 

 station his young in a thick cornel-bush on the edge of the 

 raspberry-bed, after the fruit began to ripen, and feed them 

 there for a week or more. In such cases he shows none of 

 that conscious guilt which makes the robin contemptible. 

 On the contrary, he will maintain his post in the thicket, 

 and sharply scold the intruder who ventures to steal his 

 berries. After all, his claim is only for tithes, while the robin 

 will bag your entire crop if he get a chance. 



Dr. Watts s statement that birds in their little nests agree, 

 like too many others intended to form the infant mind, is very 

 far from being true. On the contrary, the most peaceful 

 relation of the different species to each other is that of armed 

 neutrality. They are very jealous of neighbours. A few 

 years ago, I was much interested in the housebuilding of a 

 pair of summer yellow-birds. They had chosen a very pretty 

 site near the top of a tall white lilac, within easy eye-shot 

 of a chamber window. A very pleasant thing it was to see 

 their little home growing with mutual help, to watch their 

 industrious skill interrupted only by little flirts and snatches 

 of endearment, frugally cut short by the common-sense of 

 the tiny housewife. They had brought their work nearly to 

 an end, and had already begun to line it with fern-down, the 

 gathering of which demanded more distant journeys and 

 longer absences. But, alas ! the syringa, immemorial manor 

 of the catbirds, was not more than twenty feet away, and 

 these giddy neighbours had, as it appeared, been all along 

 jealously watchful, though silent, witnesses of what they 

 deemed an intrusion of squatters. No sooner were the pretty 

 mates fairly gone for a new load of lining, than 



To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots 

 Came stealing. 



