THE OOLOOIST 



101 



the orchard and built in the tip-top of 

 a willow-twig apple tree. This nest 

 was about thirty feet from terra firma. 

 The succeeding year they moved to 

 another apple tree, the same kind of 

 a tree in which they had first built, 

 (that is the tree that had died and 

 was cut down.) From this one would 

 infer that they preferred some trees 

 to others. This nest was about fifteen 

 feet from the ground. 



The Catbird lays four or five pretty 

 eggs, pale blue in color. 



The Catbird is a great fruit eater, 

 hence he incurred the special hatred 

 of the fruit grower, who is always 

 putting up scarecrows to frighten him 

 away. This bird also eats a goodly 

 portion of insects during the summer 

 months, being esi)ecially fond of grass- 

 hoppers. I remember while putting 

 up hay, adjoining a woods in which 

 there were dense tangles of vines, 

 briers, and small wild crab and plum 

 trees, a regular mecca for Catbirds: 

 tlie woods fairly rung with their song, 

 while they were flying back and forth 

 from hay-field to woods. One could 

 see great numbers of them hopping 

 about on the ground between the win- 

 droms of hay, with that most pecu- 

 liar little hop of their's. They were 

 busy catching grasshoppers, which 

 were quite plentiful, and very easily 

 caught. It was a sight worth seeing. 



The Catbird has been correctly call- 

 ed the mocking-bird of the north. His 

 chief song is a jerky roundelay inter- 

 spersed by other birds' songs which 

 he has copied and puts in whatever 

 he chooses. It somewhat resembles 

 the song of that brilliant songster, the 

 Brown Thrasher, but more jerky, and 

 is not quite so long. I remember once, 

 when I was walking through the orch- 

 ard, how I thought I heard what 

 sounded like a Bluebird singing, in 

 the middle of the orchard. I thought 

 it rather strange to hear a Bluebird's 



notes from the middle of the orchard, 

 as they were generally seen around 

 the western or more open side. I 

 went to investigate and found the 

 composer of the song to be a Catbird. 

 Beside imitating to perfection, the 

 warble of the Bluebird, I heard him 

 mock the Baltimore oriole, the Che- 

 wink, Dickcissel, and other birds, 

 while I was watching him. He is a 

 great songster. One of his other notes 

 is the catlike call "meow," another 

 note, which seems to be the alarm 

 call is a harsh "adt." All of these are 

 accompanied by more or less jerk- 

 ings and flirtings of the tail. 



John B. Behrends. 

 Illinois. 



Watching the Chickadee. 



It was Saturday afternoon and free- 

 dom from school. I was at liberty to 

 do as I pleased. I walked away up to 

 the north end of town, or up to Avery- 

 ville. I followed the Rock Island rail- 

 road from here on northward into the 

 country, to see what birds I could 

 find. Juncoes and English Sparrows 

 were seen in large numbers. I also 

 saw a Downy Woodpecker, and heard 

 several Tree Sparrows. 



I had followed the railroad north- 

 ward for about a half mile, when 1 

 heard a Chicadee, tis-a-deeing in the 

 woods to the right of the track. I 

 decided to watch this interesting lit- 

 tle member of our bird family. There 

 was something peculiar about his 

 notes that I wish to speak of. In fact 

 he uttered some notes which I had 

 never heard from a Chicadee before. 

 He seemed to be very restless and 

 generally kept flying about rather high 

 in the tops of the tall oak trees. Chic- 

 adees seldom maneuver about at a 

 great height from the ground when 

 searching for food. 



Besides their usual notes of "chica- 

 dee-dee-dee^dee-dee, their plaintive 



