26 IN BIRD LAND. 



execution almost perfect. Ever since that day I 

 have been the avowed friend of the catbird, — in 

 truth, his champion, ready at any moment, in 

 season and out, to take up the glove in his defence 

 against every assailant. Some very self- conscious 

 human performers — people who themselves live in 

 glass houses — have accused him of singing to be 

 heard, making him out vain and ambitious. Well, 

 what if he does? Why do his human compeers 

 sing or speak or write ? Certainly not purely for 

 their own delectation, but also, in part at least, to 

 catch the appreciative ear and eye of the public, and 

 win a bit of applause. " Let him that is without sin 

 among you first cast a stone." He who scoffs at 

 my plumbeous-hued choralist makes me his enemy, 



— not the choralist's, but the scoffer's. So let the 

 latter beware ! 



I leave the cat-bird, however, to his own resources 



— he is well able to take care of himself — to tell 

 what the birds were doing during a recent spring, 

 which fought in a very desultory manner its battle 

 with the north winds. Special attention is called to 

 the laggard character of the season because a tardy 

 spring is a sore ordeal to the student of bird life, 

 postponing many of his most longed-for investiga- 

 tions. The spring to which I refer (1892) was pro- 

 vokingly slow in its approach, and yet it developed 

 some traits of bird character that were interesting. 

 For instance, the first week in April was a seducer, 

 being quite bland, starting the buds on many trees, 

 and putting the migrating fever into the veins of a 



