BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 411 
“The rest is soon told, or rather it would be could thesecrets 
of the impenetrable dark-green mass of smilax, whither the 
pair betake themselves, be unclad. The next we see of the 
bird he is perched upon the topmost spray of yonder pear tree, 
with quivering wings, brim full of song. Heis inspired. For 
a time, at least, he is lifted above the commonplace. His 
kinship with the prince of song—with the Mocking Bird him- 
self, is vindicated. Hehas discovered the poetry of every-day 
life:”’ 
The Catbird is among the earliest of our morning songsters. 
Often his notes may be distinctly heard before the dawn is 
appreciable to human eyes, and if watched afterward he may 
be seen flitting noiselessly from bush to bush, with a nervous 
energy that expresses more than almost anything else the de- 
liciousness of the summer morning hours. His melody is 
scarcely inferior to that of any other member of his melodious 
family, notwithstanding so great an authority as the careful, 
attentive Wilson says: ‘‘His notes are more remarkable for sin- 
gularity than for melody.” Perhaps the distinguished ornithol- 
_ogist’s penchant for playing practical jokes upon this very 
excitable and demonstrative bird deprived him of his best op- 
portunities for taking in the fullest capacities of his song. He 
says that he sometimes amused himself, in passing through the 
woods, with imitating the violent chirping or squeaking of 
young birds, in order to observe what different species were 
around him, and says, ‘‘for such sounds at such a season in the 
woods are no less alarming to the feathered tenants of the 
bushes than the cry of tire or murder in the streets is to the 
inhabitants of a large and prosperous city. 
‘‘On such occasions of alarm and consternation, the Catbird 
is the first tomake his appearance, not singly but sometimes half 
a dozen at atime flying from different quarters to the spot. 
At this time those who are disposed to play with his feelings 
may almost throw him into fits, his emotion and agitation are 
so great at the distressful cry of what he supposes to be his 
suffering young. Other birds are variously affected, but none 
show symptoms of such extreme suffering. He hurries back- 
wards and forwards with hanging wings and open mouth, call- 
ing out louder and faster, and actually screaming with distress, 
till he appears hoarse with his exertions. He attempts no 
offensive means, but bewails, implores, in the most pathetic 
terms with which nature has supplied him, and with an agony 
of feeling which is truly affecting. Every feathered neighbor 
