The Catbird 279 



of the bird, his earnestness and entire satisfaction, seem somehow out 

 of keeping with the result. But there is much that is pleasing much 

 melody in the Catbird's song if we but give it consideration. It is not 

 a loud song ; not one that commands our attention, and not in a class with 

 songs of Thrushes and Grosbeaks or the best Sparrow songs, but it is 

 well suited to its surroundings, to the cool shade of deep shrubbery and 

 the tangle of damp thickets, and it takes a prominent place in the wild- 

 bird chorus. The Catbird is by no means restricted to the garden shrub- 

 bery, but is equally at home down in the vegetable patch, among the 

 grape-arbors, in the blackberry-briars bordering the orchard or down 

 the lane that leads to the spring-house; and as you 

 stroll along the old sunken road in the early evening i 

 one or more Catbirds are constantly in attendance, 

 darting along the rails of the decaying fence or perching for a moment 

 on the top of one of the uprights, ever full of interest in your movements. 



Out in the swamp, too, bordered with blackberry-bushes and wild 

 plums, and overgrown with alder, spice-wood and fox-grape, we find 

 Catbirds. As we penetrate the shady interior, bending below the green 

 canopy and springing from tussock to tussock, we meet with the familiar 

 protesting cry, the same apparent inquisitiveness to know what we are 

 up to ; and in among the dense tangle of grape-vine and greenbrier, we 

 may find the nest as securely placed as in the garden shrubbery. Once, 

 I remember, while exploring a swamp, I made a little squeaking noise 

 with my lips placed against the back of the hand, such as is often em- 

 ployed to attract birds, and in a moment I had a small mob of excited 

 Catbirds all around me, more than I supposed could possibly be within 

 hearing. These swampy thickets probably harbor more Catbirds than 

 any other place, notwithstanding the fact that in my mind the bird is 

 more intimately associated with the dooryard of the farmhouse. In- 

 deed, the swampy thickets and bushy borders of streams were probably 

 the original home of the Catbirds before the advent of man, and it is 

 in a certain swamp that I usually hear them first, and here, too, at the 

 height of the breeding season, that we get their song at its best. 



The Catbird retires southward in autumn, although occasionally as 

 far north as New Jersey and southern Pennsylvania, 

 or even New England, we come across an isolated Cat- Migration 

 bird that is wintering north of his usual range in 

 some sheltering woodland tangle of greenbrier, or among the dense growth 

 of bayberry-bushes on the coast. Here he manages to subsist on such ber- 

 ries as the autumnal migrants have passed by, or upon stray insects that 

 are coaxed forth on mild days in winter by the warmth of the mid-day sun. 



At Philadelphia, the first Catbirds arrive in the spring between April 

 15 and 24, and they are generally distributed by the 29th. Iti the 

 autumn, the last one has usually departed by the middle of October. 



There is ar certain amount of feeling against the Catbird in some 

 parts of the country on account of the fruit and berries that it consumes. 



