

SPECIES 8. TURDUS LIVID US. 



CAT-BIRD. 

 [Plate XIV. Fig. 3.] 



Muscicapa Carolinensis, LINN. Syst. 328. Le gobe-mouche brun 

 de Virginie, Buiss. it, 365. Cat-bird, CATESB. i, 66. LATH- 

 AM, n, 353. Le moucherolle de Virginie, BUFF, iv, 562. 

 Lucar lividus, apice nigra, the Cat-bird, or Chicken-bird, BAR- 

 TRAM, p. 290. PE ALE'S Museum, JVo. 6770. 



WE have here before us a very common and very numerous 

 species, in this part of the United States; and one as well known 

 to all classes of people, as his favourite briars, or blackberry 

 bushes. In spring or summer, on approaching thickets of bram- 

 bles, the first salutation you receive is from the Cat-bird; and a 

 stranger, unacquainted with its note, would instantly conclude 

 that some vagrant orphan kitten had got bewildered among the 

 briars, and wanted assistance; so exactly does the call of the bird 

 resemble the voice of that animal. Unsuspicious, and extreme- 

 ly familiar, he seems less apprehensive of man than almost any 

 other of our summer visitants; for whether in the woods, or in 

 the garden, where he frequently builds his nest, he seldom allows 

 you to pass without approaching to pay his respects, in his usual 

 way. This humble familiarity and deference, from a stranger 

 too, who comes to rear his young, and spend the summer with 

 us, ought to entitle him to a full share of our hospitality: Sorry 

 I am, however, to say, that this, in too many instances, is cruelly 

 the reverse. Of this I will speak more particularly in the se- 

 quel. 



About the twenty-eighth of February the Cat-bird first arrives 

 in the lower parts of Georgia from the south, consequently win- 

 ters not far distant, probably in Florida. On the second week 



