ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS 117 



that within hearing there were from fifteen to 

 twenty different kinds of songsters, all more or less 

 in full tune. If their notes and calls could have 

 been materialized and made as palpable to the eye 

 as they were to the ear, I think they would have 

 veiled the landscape and darkened the day. There 

 were big songs and little songs, — songs from the 

 trees, the bushes, the ground, the air, — warbles, 

 trills, chants, musical calls, and squeals, etc. Near 

 by in the foreground were the catbird and the brown 

 thrasher, the former in the bushes, the latter on the 

 top of a hickory. These birds are related to the 

 mockingbird, and may be called performers; their 

 songs are a series of vocal feats, like the exhibition 

 of an acrobat; they throw musical somersaults, and 

 turn and twist and contort themselves in a very edi- 

 fying manner, with now and then a ventriloquial 

 touch. The catbird is the more shrill, supple, and 

 feminine ; the thrasher the louder, richer, and more 

 audacious. The mate of the latter had a nest, 

 which I found in a field under the spreading ground- 

 juniper. From several points along the course of 

 a bushy little creek there came a song, or a melody 

 of notes and calls, that also put me out, — the tipsy, 

 hodge-podge strain of the polyglot chat, a strong, 

 olive-backed, yellow - breasted, black - billed bird, 

 with a voice like that of a jay or a crow that had 

 been to school to a robin or an oriole, — a performer 

 sure to arrest your ear and sure to elude your eye. 

 There is no bird so afraid of being seen, or fonder 

 of being heard. 



