BIRDS OF THE PASTURE AND FOREST. 169 



while the bird was singing from a tree near the heart of 

 a village, when they were equally delightful and impres- 

 sive. 



In my early days, when I was at school, I lived near 

 a grove that was vocal with these Thrushes. It was there 

 I learned to love their song more than any other sound 

 in nature, and above the finest strains of artificial music. 

 Since then I have seldom failed to make frequent visits 

 to their habitats, to listen to their notes, which cause full 

 half the pleasure I derive from a summer evening ramble. 



Dr. Brewer does not so highly estimate the song of the 

 Veery, but Mr. Ridgway differs from him. " To his ear," 

 says Dr. Brewer, " there was a solemn harmony and a 

 beautiful expression which combined to make the song 

 of this bird surpass that of all the other American Wood- 

 Thrushes." I have found the nests of this species very 

 near the ground, also upon a mound of grass and sticks, 

 and on a bush. Their eggs are of a greenish-blue. 



THE CATBIRD. 



Pond of solitude, but not averse to the proximity of 

 human dwellings, if the primitiveness of some of the 

 adjacent wood remains ; avoiding the deep forest and the 

 open pastures, and selecting for his habitat the edge of a 

 wooded swamp, or a fragment of forest near the low 

 grounds of a cultivated field, the Catbird may be seen 

 whisking among the thickets, often uttering his complain- 

 ing mew, like the cry of a kitten. Still, though attached 

 to these wet and retired situations, he is often very famil- 

 iar, and is not silenced by our presence, like the Veery. 

 His nest of dry sticks is sometimes woven into a currant- 

 bush in a garden that adjoins a swamp, and his quaint 

 notes may be heard, as if totally unmindful of the near- 

 ness of his human foe. The Catbird is not an invet- 



8 



