122 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



other birds, but also in appearance. I have been much inter- 

 ested in his singing and with his songs, many of which to me 

 have been delightful. He has a dozen or more songs or parts 

 of songs which he sings, many of them being the broken and 

 jumbled notes of other birds, and some of them their songs 

 entire. I have heard him mimic or mock the Baltimore oriole, 

 the whistle of the tufted titmouse, the cooing of the mourning 

 dove, the call of the killdeer and the song of the brown thrash- 

 er. Unlike his cousin the brown thrasher, who sings from 

 the topmost branch of the tallest tree, the catbird sings from 

 the deep foliage of a tree or bush. This habit of his is beau- 

 tifully portrayed by Cora Mae Cratty in her lines Only a Song, 

 in which she says : 



''Out in the apple tree, swinging and singing, 



Swinging and singing its heart's jubilee, 

 Sits a gray catbird in modesty clinging 



Deep in the foliage where no eye can see. 

 List to his roundelay, rippling and ringing, 



Hour after hour, the green branches through. 

 Showers of song o'er sad hearts thus he's flinging, 



Cheering and healing while hidden from view." 



Of the song of the catbird, Audubon says : "It is com- 

 prised of many of the gentler trills and sweeter modulations 

 of our various woodland choristers, delivered with apparent 

 caution, and with all the attention necessary to enable the per- 

 former to please the ear of his mate. Each cadence passes on 

 without faltering; and if you are acquainted with the song of 

 the birds he so sweetly imitates, you are sure to recognize the 

 manner of the different species. When the warmth of his lov- 

 ing bosom engages him to make a choice of the notes of our 

 best songsters, he brings forth sounds as mellow as those of 

 the thrasher and mocking bird. These medleys, heard in the 

 calm and balmy hours of retiring day, always seem to possess 

 double power, and he must have a dull ear, indeed, and with 

 little relish for the simple melodies of nature, who can listen 

 to them without delight." 



The usefulness and harmfulness of a bird depends in a 

 great measure upon the food it eats. Of the food of the cat- 

 bird, Dr. Sylvester S. Judd, who examined two hundred and 



