THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS. 



the warm twilight of a June day, and when fifty rods 

 distant you will hear their soft, reverberating notes, 

 rising from a dozen different throats. 



It is one of the simplest strains to be heard, — as 

 simple as the curve in form, delighting from the pure 

 element of harmony and beauty it contains, and not 

 from any novel or fantastic modulation of it, — thus 

 contrasting strongly with such rollicking, hilarious 

 songsters as the bobolink, in whom we are chiefly 

 pleased with the tintinnabulation, the verbal and labial 

 excellence, and the evident conceit and delight of the 

 performer. 



I hardly know whether I am more pleased or an- 

 noyed with the cat-bird. Perhaps she is a little too 

 common, and her part in the general chorus a little 

 too conspicuous. If you are listening for the note of 

 another bird, she is sure to be prompted to the most 

 loud and protracted singing, drowning all other sounds ; 

 if you sit quietly down to observe a favorite or study 

 a new-comer, her curiosity knows no bounds, and you 

 are scanned and ridiculed from every point of obser- 

 vation. Vet I would not miss her; I would only sub- 

 ordinate her a little, make her less conspicuous. 



She is the parodist of the woods, and there is ever 

 a mischievous, bantering, half-ironical undertone in 

 her lay, as if she were conscious of mimicking and 

 disconcerting some envied songster. Ambitious of 

 song, practicing and rehearsing in private, she yet 

 seems the least sincere and genuine of the sylvan 



