172 CAT BIRD. 



choice, than its song is heard from the topmost branches of the trees 

 around, in the dawn of the morning. This song is a compound of many 

 of the gentler trills and sweeter modulations of our various woodland 

 choristers, delivered with apparent caution, and with all the attention and 

 softness necessary to enable the performer 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 recog- 

 nise the manner of the different species. When the warmth of his loving 

 bosom engages him to make choice of the notes of our best songsters, he 

 brings forth sounds as mellow and as powerful as those of the Thrasher 

 and Mocking Bird. These medleys, when heard in the calm and balmy 

 hours of retiring day, always seem to possess a double power, and he 

 must have a dull ear indeed, and little rehsh for the simple melodies of 

 nature, who can listen to them without delight. 



The manners of this species are lively, and at intervals border on the 

 grotesque. It is extremely sensitive, and will follow an intruder to a 

 considerable distance, wailing and mewing as it passes from one tree to 

 another, its tail now jerked and thrown from side to side, its wings 

 drooping, and its breast deeply inchned. On such occasions, it would 

 fain peck at your hand ; but these exhibitions of irritated feeling seldom 

 take place after the young are sufficiently grown to be able to take care 

 of themselves. In some instances, I have known this bird to recognise at 

 once its friend from its foe, and to suffer the former even to handle the 

 treasure deposited in its nest, with all the marked assurance of the know- 

 ledge it possessed of its safety; when, on the contrary, the latter had to 

 bear all its anger. The sight of a dog seldom irritates it, while a single 

 glance at the wily cat excites the most painful paroxysms of alarm. It 

 never neglects to attack a snake with fury, although it often happens that 

 it becomes the sufferer for its temerity. 



The vulgar name which this species bears, has probably rendered it 

 more conspicuous than it would otherwise be, and has also served to bring 

 it into some degree of contempt with persons not the best judges of the 

 benefits it confers on the husbandman in early spring, when, with indus- 

 trious care, it cleanses his fruit-trees of thousands of larvae and insects, 

 which, in a single day, would destroy, while yet in the bud, far more of 

 his fruit than the Cat Bird would eat in a whole season. But alas, selfish- 

 ness, the usual attendant of ignorance, not only heaps maledictions on the 

 harmless bird, but dooms it to destruction. The naughty boys pelt the 



