86 THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS. 



sparrow fills in the chorus of the fields. It has the 

 the nightingale's habit of singing in the twilight, as 

 indeed have all our thrushes. Walk out toward the 

 forest in the warm twilight of a June day, and when 

 fifty rods distant you will hear their soft, reverberat- 

 ing notes, rising from a dozen different ihroats. 



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 la- 

 bial 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 observation. Yet I would not miss 

 ber ; I would only subordinate her a little, make her 

 less conspicuous. 



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

 u mischievous, bantering, half-ironical undertone in 

 her lay, as if she were conscious of mimicking and 



